


God Told Nicodemus

by hello_imasalesman



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 12:11:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6518815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hello_imasalesman/pseuds/hello_imasalesman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate crawled out of 111 but Sole's the one who survived. Keeps his nose to the grindstone, keeps doggedly pushing forward, pounds the pavement. Any less and he'll drown. (Eventual m!ss/Hancock)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sole Park's got a bloody baseball bat filled with nails on his back, and an assault rifle two shots away from falling apart cradled in his arms.

Neon signs had never been a herald of anything greater than seedy bars or promises of girls, girls, girls, but he had expected something slightly more than an immediate shakedown. He had barely been two steps through the gate before he had been approached. A mugging on his way to that hotel mentioned on that more than likely out-of-date sign, or maybe waking up in a tub of ice missing an organ or two if the hotel thing did pan out--

Sole tilts his chin up at the man in front of him. Dirty, wearing road leathers, visible scarring on his face. If he had known what the future held for him, maybe he wouldn't had let good old Uncle Sam pay for the scar removal from the spider mine explosion, back when he was detoxing out in Canada before being shipped home. He wishes he had something else to show him that he's not worth messing with, but weapons held at ease are barely considered in the equation in this new world. He's noticed he's taller than most, being pre-war, but intimidation from his height and bulk only went so far.

The other man hadn't been speaking loud, but other people are staring at them. There's a man holding a tommy gun with his hat pulled low, shoulders taught, wearing a threadbare suite that he's concluded to be the uniform around these parts; and another man behind him, bald, sunglasses, who looks like he's trying not to pay attention to them too hard, made obvious by the fact that he's sweeping at nothing in front of the store front. Both the shopkeepers are staring, too; a robot, someone else who looks burnt to a crisp even at a distance.

Sole doesn't have any bullets left, after bullishly dragging his way from Diamond City. He's been scavenging, but he knows he's too stupid to do it right. He hasn't seen any other scavengers tackle the city like this; they stick to the outskirts, where the carcasses of old factories and department stores are still swollen with goods and fewer dangers. The city, he's found, has been picked clean, but bursting with super mutants and rage-addled Raiders. The threats are always higher than the pay-off. But even if he did have bullets, he wouldn't shoot. His gun's aim isn't steady enough with the ricochet, not in close quarters and surrounded by civilians.

Sole grits his teeth, bares them in a snarl. "You better back off, or you're going to be the one needing insurance." The rifle had been one of the poorest and most ramshackle things he had ever shot, but he had finally gotten something that wasn't post war and made of piping; that had to count for something. And it had a bayonet, for easier bashing. But he's thinking, he'll drop the gun, he'll reach for his bat--

"What was that?" The man murmurs, leaning forward with a hand to his ear. Sole's fingers twitched. "I- I couldn't hear you over the sound of all that 'pathetic'."

He knows he has a choice, here. He can do what he has been doing since he's crawled out of the vault, and that's prove that he can be as big of an asshole as anyone else. But he doesn't know the rules of this town, not yet. They said in Diamond City that Goodneighbor was a shithole, in more or less terms-- that you'd get everything filched from your pockets and your head beaten in before you walk through the door. But Sole doesn't know if that gives him carte blanche to beat this bastard's head in, and by the looks of his jittery hands he's starting to run out of time in deciding.

"You hand over everything you got in them pockets, your sack, too--" He gestures with his lit cigarette towards Sole's back, overfilled with scavenged junk, "Or accidents start happening to ya. Big, bloody accidents."

He hadn't noticed the other two, though he's not sure how he missed them. The man in the red frock is burnt to hell, so bad he doesn't even have a nose anymore. At least, he thinks it's burns, but it doesn't look the same as that one guy he saw get wheeled into the medical tent while he was getting his daily shots. Melted by a Chinese flamer. His face had melted clean off. He hadn't survived.

The woman he had been talking to, hair as red as his coat, leans back, situates herself in front of the one store's exterior and just leans back. Not for lack of ability, because he can see she's a fighter, too, in the well-kept armor she has on and the breadth of her shoulders.

"Whoa, whoa. Time out."

The man walks with a sway in his step, hips rocking. The extortionist flicks his cigarette away as he turns. He's taller than the other, broader, too, but that's not stopping red coat. "When someone steps through the gates for the first time, they're our guest. You lay off this extortion crap."

"What do you care? He ain't one of us."

Sole almost checks that the numbers of his Vault suit weren't visible. But he knows they're not. Slipped a worn military olive shirt over it as soon as he was able, then layered more armor on top of that. The suit made him itch. Made him always feel cold, even if it wasn't.

"No love for your mayor, Finn? I said, let him go." They stop, and everyone around seems to stop and gawk even more at the stand off. With Finn's back turned, Sole is slowly sliding his rifle into the loose belt loop on his hip, reaching behind his back for the solid wood handle of his bat with his other hand.

"You're soft, Hancock. You keep letting outsiders walk all over us, one day there'll be a new mayor."

Suddenly, he realizes how quiet it is, except for the furious sweeping of the bald man near the store front. His fingers hesitate.

"Come on, man." The mayor smiles easily, eyes heavy lidded as he closes the gap between the two. Finn looks tense, but he's not twitching for a weapon. Sole pulls his bat out of its makeshift holster, quietly swings it around where the whoosh of wood through the air is obscured by that unceasing sweeping. "This is me we're talking about. Let me tell you something."

He almost looks kind, reaching out to put a hand on Finn's shoulder. Sole misses the initial movement behind his back. Finn does, too, because he doesn't jerk back until it's too late, and by then, the soft hand on his shoulder had grown hard, dragging him forward as a dagger pushes between the worn creases of his leather armor, pointedly aimed, again and again. Blood spurts from the wound almost immediately, squelches on the second thrust of the blade, and the mayor lets the body sag down slowly in his arms before he drops him to the floor.

"Now why'd you have to go and say that, huhn?" He twists the knife around, twirls it through his fingers. He's showing off. Sole swallows, adjusting the grip of the bat in his hands. "Breaking my heart over here." The blade's entirely covered in blood, all the way to the handle.

When he looks up, all he can notice are that the mayor's eyes are all black. This close, he can tell it's not a burn. He looks--

"You-- you're a ghoul?" He blurts out. He looks like a less gnarled, less abstract version of the things he indiscriminately rips apart on railroads and subways. Hancock arches a hairless brow, his eyes training on the bat still held white-knuckled to his chest. Sole drops it just as he hears the sound of a boot crunching over debris behind him, a shadow growing longer over his shoulder.

"Lots of walking rad freaks like me walking around here," Hancock's eyes drift from Sole's face to just past it. He can feel one of the town guard's practically breathing down his neck, but the feel of a gun's muzzle never presses to the base of his skull. "So you might want to keep questions like that on the low burner next time."

Sole holds up his free hand, palms out. He's made blunders like this too often to not know he has to go on the defensive, keep his head down and tail tucked if he doesn't want to be kicked out. "Ain't mean nothing wrong, trust me. I just-- sorry. Not a lot of ghouls where I'm from."

Hancock smiles. "Must not have a lot of radiation where you're from. Lucky you."

Hancock makes him nervous. It's not the lack of nose or the skin, but despite being a foot and change shorter Sole keenly feels the other man could easily kill him, even without the neighborhood watch backing him up. It doesn't help that Finn is still bleeding out on the worn cobblestone at their feet. "Well, then. Goodneighbor is of the people, for the people, you feel? Everyone's welcome."

Sole swallows. "Thanks."

"Just consider this town your home away from home..." Hancock says it easily. Around them, people have started to go back to their business; at least, they're no longer staring. "As long as you remember who's in charge."

"Won't forget that for a while." Sole mutters, glancing at Finn; there are neighborhood watchmen already grabbing his body, dragging the corpse off to who knows where. When he glances back up, Hancock's grinning, all teeth. He tips his tricorner exaggeratedly before turning. When he's made it back to the woman and nearly through the door of the Old State House Sole finally holsters his bat, letting out that breath he hadn't realized he had been holding.

\--

Nate's eyes ache in the cool darkness of the vault. He cannot see anything as it descends. he had seen the blast, had tried to shade his face. He presses the heels of his hands against his eyelids, presses hard until the black gives way to white flashes.

Shaun screams.

When he pulls his hands away, Nora swims into being in front of his eyes. Her skin almost looks green in the light of the tunnel. He is not blind. He swore they had told them you'd go blind if it happened right before your eyes, render you sightless. Deaf and dumb and dead--

"Nate," her voice is broken and quiet underneath Shaun's wail. He could hear her through anything, through the bombs, through the varying chatter around them. Nate rushes in, cradles her face with one large hand, the other touching the arm holding Shaun. Her eyes are wet. "Nate, we've, we made it."

"Baby, yeah--" His voice is foreign to his own ears, echoing strangely and very far away. Collectively, they sway with the platform as it finally finishes its descent and jolts to the bottom. Shaun whimpers in Nora's arms; Nate quickly ducks down, presses a shushing kiss to his forehead, even as the scientists are herding them out like cattle. Straightens his back, squares his shoulders, cups Nora's cheek and draw her close: "Everything is okay, we made it. We're safe." He kisses her.

He kisses her and Sole is brought back into his body, retching and gasping. There are hands on his shoulders and his arms pulled taught behind his back and the nape of his neck, pulling him back. Water drips down his crooked nose, rolls down the back of his buzzed head as his head is pulled up to force his eyes towards the sky, grey and cloudless. His ears are thoroughly waterlogged, and as they pop and clear, the water sliding hot and thick down the side of his face like blood, their words come to him:

"Atom, cleanse this man--"

The words dissolve into nothing as he's thrust under; only moments for Sole to gasp in air, but it ends up mostly being irradiated water coursing through his lungs, briny and prickling. He coughs into the abyss. His eyes open to a muddy water sting and murky green; dark shadows of legs, so many legs--

They pull him up again. His head is pounding. He gasps, wheezes. Screams, but it comes out in a gurgle.

"And through the power of his might, let him strike us all blind, for his might is too strong to behold amongst the mere living in unworthy shells--"

He pushes one of the legs beneath him out, trying to find purchase in the silt beneath him. It only raises him slightly from his knees before he loses his footing and falls back to them. There are many hands, too many hands, and they tighten their grip and come for his face, for his throat-- he is dragged back, under the water.

Sole wakes with a shout, his body already moving as he tumbles out of bed onto his feet, crouched and ready for a fight. The floorboards creak under his weight as he shifts his stance, looking around. Nobody comes. His awareness comes back to him, slowly, through the fog of sleep. It's after the bombs. He's in Goodneighbor. Hotel Rexford.  
  
His breathing comes back under his control, slowly, steadily. The dreams aren't new, though their content is. It used to be all Anchorage, cold weather and screams and the sound of gunfire. The green glow of his Pip-boy lights the dim room enough where he can lean towards the foot of the bed and grab the bag he's left there, retrieving his smokes. It takes too many tries from the rusty lighter before he can get the cigarette lit. The clock on the display says it's already 5:30, but it seems darker than that. Colder than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh I'm sorry this is such a slow start. I probably should not have two long form fics going at the same time but oh well. Just some clarification, this is the same Sole from my other fics, though I guess all of those other fics could be considered 'alternative timeline' compared to this one. :^) thank you very much for any comments and kudos!
> 
> My tumblr is civilization-illstayrighthere where I have some other writing etc.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sole gets to know Goodneigbor a little more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of this was beta'd by placentalmammal and bearmerchant over on tumblr, which is incredibly appreciated!

He came back from his first tour in Anchorage sweating something fierce in a Boston winter. There wasn’t any more snow than usual , but it still came up to his calves, seeped into the cracks in the soles of his boots.

The doctors at the hospital had told him, on his way back, as he was sweating and shivering it out in Ontario, not to worry. It was cold here but they'd send him back okay for his partner. It gets warmer, and things get better. Maybe if he's lucky, once his paperwork goes through again, they'll just let him stay home in a riot unit and keep the peace in the city when things got prickly. Stay home instead of another tour of cold, or going to Canada, or getting shipped across the sea. Nobody made it back from tour overseas.

Nora wasn't living in their cozy one-floor house their GI bill bought, not at the time. They didn't have much use for lawyers in Anchorage, but someone as good as her was in demand stateside, at bases, near the Capital. She was doing a job over in Aberdeen, down in the Columbia Commonwealth.

Nate's teeth chatter over the phone. "Why do they need a lawyer down there, anyways?"

He hasn't ever been to the proving grounds but he can only imagine what they're testing down there. He didn't pass the power armor test, not once, before he shipped out. Nate remembers over the phone that she had said twelve weeks, tops. He has only been back for one and a half. Her voice hesitates. "Just making sure everyone know their rights while helping the war effort." She says it in that way that lets Sole know that they don't know their rights, not really, without actually saying it. She sounds stressed.

He doesn't get it, because the government can do pretty much anything they want. He doesn't know why they need the JAG Corps anymore. He doesn't ask again, though, because he would rather hear about her day, then spend another moment listening to the news drone on in the background or the clock tick on the wall, twisting his fingers listlessly in the phone cord. There's no static over the airwaves like there was when he was doing his ten minute call allotment cramped in a curtained cube in Anchorage, but he still wishes she were here because they're always too short.

His car doesn't have fuel left in it, but Nate sits out in it anyway. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel and his leg bounces in time with the chattering of his teeth. Snow is falling soft and slow onto the hood of his car. There might be enough snow, if it gets worst, that the post won’t come tomorrow. Then he won’t get his check. He doesn't have a job at the moment, he's just on reserve. But it doesn't matter. He doesn't need much. He's just been eating frozen meals lately. Pulling them out of the oven and eating hunched over the stovetop, simultaneously searing his greedy, stuttering fingers and freezing his tongue when he bites through to the middle of it. Everything is fried and easy and it all tastes, vaguely, the same.

People come up to the house across the way. In the sun, but also in the rain, and the snow. They visit at all times. It's not droves of people, and if you didn't know better, it could be just someone who's real popular. In college, Sole went to one of those kinds of houses a lot, which is why he only made it his sophomore year and he went home midway with a whole lot of loans. There's nobody over there now, but then again, the lights are off.

Something loud bangs onto his driver's side window. Nate startles, reaching for a gun on his hip that isn't there.

"Hey!" The voice is muffled through the glass, knocking hard on his window. The snow is falling off, clearing way. It's the neighbor. He's wearing a puffy coat but it's unzipped and there's nothing under it, and his hands are bare. "Hey, roll your window down!"

Nate can feel his breath is coming out way too fast; maybe it always had been, now that he thinks about it, but he knows he's breathing embarrassingly fast now, like he's panting. He cranks the window down, just a quarter of the way, and flurries rush into the car.

He's never really spoken to his neighbors. He knows Nora has, but he went out to Anchorage almost as soon as they moved in. He only knows him by sight. "Are you a fucking cop?"

Nate blinks up at him. "What?"

The man is shoved right up against the gap of his window, blocking out all of the snow, and the nearby streetlight shining down. "Are you a cop? You gotta answer straight, if you are, that's the law."

Nate wipes his sweaty palms against his thighs. "Nah, I ain't a cop. I'm not a cop."

The man squints at him, going still. Or maybe, Nate had gone still. He can't tell much anymore, the rough, sweat-slicked texture of his palms making a weird noise against the grain of the denim. "You live in that house over there?"

He jerks his head towards Nate's house, instead of removing his hands from where they're shoved underneath his armpits. Nate's hand move from his thighs to his steering wheel, and the leather creaks underneath his grip. "Yeah." He twists his hands, "Like I said, I ain't a cop."

"So if you're not a cop..." He leaves his sentence trailing, quizzical.

The neighbor is looking hard at him now. Nate shrugs, helplessly. His tongue is thick in his mouth. "Sorry."

"Yeah," He squints. "Sorry too, man. It's just creepy when it looks like someone is watching you for, like, a week. That's cop secret service shit."

It's not that he's addicted, or anything, but he wishes he just had a little. He doesn't even know if anyone non-military has the stuff, where they'd even get it. It's hard without Nora around, and dealing with all the bullshit coming home: the paperwork and the house and everything in general. He can't remember why, but he left the door and the back gate open yesterday, and a foot of snow blew into the kitchen and the dog got out. The flyers are still sitting on the dining room table.

He could ask the neighbor, right here and now. You got any psycho, man? That's what it's called, what we call it, up in the cold and the snow. But when Nate thinks to really ask he's already pulling away from the side of the car, trudging through fresh snow that has just started to cover his previous tracks. Nate's palms squeak as he holds the leather steering wheel tight, too tight, and twists his hands around.

The sudden movement of Hancock's leg snaps him to present. He's getting ahead of himself. Hancock is perched just on the very edge of the couch. His leg is bouncing and Sole can feel the tremors of it through the old couch like an earthquake. He might as well be shaking Sole. "So, what's your drug of choice?" He says it easy-like. He's old hat at using, but not patronizing. "I mean, of what you've tried."

Sole takes a drag of his own cigarette, letting his eyes finally survey the coffee table, trying not to be too greedy with his gaze. "Why? You offering?"

When his eyes fall back to Hancock, he's noticeably closer now, thighs touching. "I feel like I shouldn't be so surprised, someone from the vault not exactly trustin' or anything."

Sole's inhales. "It's not-- well. Yeah, I guess. I mean, it's not the same." His arms hang between his legs, elbows balanced on his knees. "Guess I'm not used to people being nice here."

Hancock shrugs. "No offense taken. You shouldn't get used to it, either." Sole can hear his grin. "But, I like you. So pick you poison."

Sole laughs, even as his stomach flips. He recognizes half of the vials and boxes and inhalers on the table, but he's sure if it's not out on the buffet spread he could ask. Somehow, Hancock would have it; he gives off that kind of air. But his hands are going somewhere safe. He's always been an upper man, the depressants of alcohol and the occasional tobacco and fetid weed blunt passed around Anchorage excluded; the bright yellow cardboard box rattles when he picks it up, and Hancock laughs.

It’s not an unfriendly laugh. "Mentats man too, huh?"

"Yeah, sometimes." Sole’s shoulders go up in a half shrug as he pulls the tin out from the cardboard packaging, shoving it noisily into his back pocket. He knows he can resell these. He waves the carton listlessly. "You have anywhere I can throw the cardboard?"

"You can leave it on the table." Hancock says.

\--

Sole ducks out of the warehouse door, letting it swing close behind him. He sucks on his tongue, clears out his throat, and spits out a gob of saliva and phlegm and blood through a slight gap in his front teeth. His bat is hanging semi-limp from his hands; it's covered in gore. He doesn't have anything to clean it off, and he doesn't want to put it back onto the straps on his back and smear it all across the front of his armor. It will reek something awful until it dries and might keep even smelling past that.

A ghoul passes in front of him, does a double take and stops. She's a svelte thing, stick thin and boxy, wearing all leather that doesn't soften the hard angles of her bones. He can see the sharp angle of her elbows jutting out of the side, hands shoved in her pockets. When she tilts her head, her perfectly coiffed grey bob bounces. "You coming?"

Sole blinks. He almost starts to bounce the edge of his bat against his foot, but remembers last second that the nails will drive clean through the threadbare shoes he had bought in Diamond City for two day's worth of work. Instead, he hooks his thumbs into the loops of his jeans, and answers: "Uh?"

She laughs. "Mayor Hancock's monthly speech." She doesn't seem too phased over the dried blood splattered on his body, but wont take her eyes off of him, either. Not wary, but curious. "You new here?"

He hopes his grin at six foot and change doesn't look intimidating under a layer of blood. "Y'all always ask that around here, don't you?"

She laughs. "You are from out of town." She approaches him, easy as can be, and holds out an arm. "Come on. You hurt?"

He's knows he's an outsider; he's known this before Goodneighbor, before Diamond City, even. He knew it as soon as he stepped off the one-eleven platform. The first time he had entered Diamond City, he got swept up into a lie he couldn't sell very well by a reporter who immediately twisted his words as ammo against a mayor who seemed to struggle with even feigning disinterest, let alone actually caring. It had felt more overwhelming than a simple stabbing had been. (Which, Sole supposed, indicated more wrong with him than either city.) Not that he had expected anyone to care.

But it felt a little different here. Maybe he was romanticizing it. Sole never was much one for words. "That obvious, huh? And nah, not much. You should see the other guys."

She laughs as he takes her arm. He knows he's an outsider, but everyone else is here, too. It's not too bad. He's lived in rough areas before. The Rexford is cheaper than the Dugout and once he gets paid for this job, he's going to go fetch them some robot that makes beer for a pretty tidy sum that will let him finally start socking away caps.

With their arms hooked she leads him through the winding back alleys. "So, you've been here long?" He's seen her around before in Goodneighbor, mostly near the Third Rail and around a cluster of shacks and mattresses that make up one of the town's miniature housing slums. He wouldn't be following her now if he hadn't; he's probably a little too trusting for someone that just cleared out a warehouse full of political enemies of Charlie's mystery employer. She wasn't wearing a fedora and parroting lines from gangster holotapes two centuries old, though, so he's assumed himself safe.

"About a decade," She answers, turning him down another alleyway, towards the town proper. It's a rat maze of collapsed buildings. Some with doors, some hanging open and gutted, others boarded up. Just because they were boarded up didn't mean anyone wasn't inside, though; a lot of the times the old boards swung open like doors. He can't remember, specifically, but this part of town must had been on its way out even before the bombs fell. "Give or take. Haven't really kept track."

They emerge from the winding alleyways into the much more open part of town; Sole's hunched shoulders unfurl and straighten. There's a decent sized crowd gathered at the bottom of the Old State House, large enough to be almost surprising. People took time out of their day to come and listen. None of them seem to really notice that he's covered in dried blood, though by now it's taken on a dull brown finish.

KLEO nearly barrels the two of them over as she clanks her way towards the center of the crowd. "Hey, Daisy!" Hancock's leaning over the railing, arms folded as he shouts down conversationally. "How's my favorite girl doing? Didn't I see you on a date with Marowski the other day?"

"Huh!" She snorts, "He wishes!" Everyone laughs, including his ghoul guide. He can feel her laughter vibrate through her bones and into his arm as she lets him go. Sole laughs, too, even though he doesn't know who Marowski is.

"Alright, alright, we're getting off track. What was I saying?"

Hancock has a good voice, Sole's decided. He's no commanding officer, but he has that subtle imposition that would make Sole's hands move before he ever realizes what was asked of him. There's a quiet power behind his rough words. His only recent comparison to speeches is in the form of McDonough; the man himself reminded him of the doughy, pallid politicians from before the bombs, denying accusations and not much else.

Hancock doesn't pace. He stands tall, and he looks it with his hat pushed back and a fist raised as his voice continues, even and confident, conversational and witty. He doesn't speak with thesauruses tucked underneath his tongue. To his left, with her back against the wall, Fahrenheit stands like his shadow.

"What kind of twisted, un-neighborly boogeyman would want to hurt our peaceful community?"

One man next to them in a smart pin-stripe raises his voice. "The institute and their synths!"

Hancock grins, pointing down. "That's right! Who said that? Come on up to my office, later. You've earned yourself some jet."

The crowd banters, back and forth. Sole sways on his heels, eyes darting from when one person speaks, to another. When he looks up, Hancock's eyes are on him.

"Now, who's scared of the institute?"

"Not us!" Everyone says, and Sole does, too, just half a beat behind.

Hancock's voice is rising. Somewhere in the distance, thunder is rumbling in warning of imminent irradiated rains. "And which town in the Commonwealth should the institute not fuck with?"

The ghoulette's hand has very suddenly settled squarely on Sole's ass now; he nearly jumps at the touch, but instead glances over with a grin.

She's not looking at him, the friendly eyes of someone interested, and she's not looking elsewhere as if playing pretend hard to get.Her eyes dart over, and widen, simultaneous with her fingers peeling open the edge of his back pockets.

"Goodneighbor!"

He's surprised, because he doesn't own a wallet. Not anymore; he had shed that with his pants, and shirt, a heavy weight on top of his wadded clothes in a sad grey bin as he pulled on the vault suit. Sole would have expected her to have just grab the change pouch he has on his belt, but--

She bolts, darting off through the crowd. Sole's hand goes to his side, dazed by the suddenness. Of course, she had. Some people seem to notice, their heads turning, but the movement is lost to the others in the crowd who are fixated above on their mayor, pumping their fists into the air. The pouch of caps, and the tin of mentats sitting in his back pocket.

\--

There's a gentle commotion at the back of the bar; Sole twists to look over his shoulder. Hancock has emerged from around the wall that divided the staircase from the rest of the metro turned bar, with Ham at his side. Ham is a good foot or so taller; not as tall as him, but clear above Hancock, and he has to hunch over to talk at the same level as the mayor. They pause at the landing, and Hancock nods and Ham nods and they part, just like that. A drifter sidles up to him, taking Ham's place.

He can only distantly hear their conversation; something about owing of a tab, and caps being unpaid. Sole turns back to the bar.

He doesn't expect the voices to get any closer, but here they are, Hancock insistently trying to swat the shivering man away as diplomatically as possible as he climbs into the bar stool next to him. "We'll talk later about payments, alright?"

Sitting side-by-side, even with Hancock's long torso the height difference is apparent. He acts almost surprised, brows raising as his eyes fall on Sole. "Look, it's you! Vault guy," He says, nudging Sole's arm, keeping his hand on the sleeve of his t-shirt; he can't tell if it's pointed, him not touching his skin. "Getting settled in, I see?"

"You always chat up the new people who drift into town?" Sole asks over the foamy head of his beer. It clings cloyingly to his palette, bitter, but also sour. All beer is like this now. He keeps buying and drinking it in hopes one day he'll find a good bottle or get used to the new taste. Whichever comes first.

To his credit, Hancock laughs. He has an attractive laugh, to match an attractive voice. A rough rasp, the feel of warm, coarse sand of the Banks underneath his fingertips. He leans into Sole's personal space with his elbow firmly on the bar. "Only drifters who're starting to make a name for themselves." Hancock's holding a murky glass of whisky by the tips of his fingers, so loose it looks moments from crashing to the bar. That's what Sole should have ordered, a few fingers or whatever constitutes measurements now in the wastes of liquor, because all of the beer is so foul. But liquor costs so much more, and he's already starting to run out of money. Bullets are expensive, food is expensive, rad away is expensive. "I heard you cleared up the warehouses for Charlie."

Sole's gaze follows to the robot, whom he knows is listening despite facing away from them, busy cleaning glassware with a damp rag. Sole shrugs, poorly feigning disinterest. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Hancock's laugh is loud. "Relax." Sole's shoulders jump. "I'm Charlie's employer. I own the bar."

Sole sucks in a breath, "Oh." The word comes out heavy, falling leaden onto the bar. "Well- oh."

"Damn, Charlie must've really scared you good to lie like that." Hancock muses, taking a sip of his drink. He puts the glass down onto the bar; his other hand presses to Sole's bicep, finally crowding in that last bit of his personal space. "But still, I'm a little hurt. You'd lie to your good ol' Mayor Hancock like that?"

Sole's not sure if he should be afraid or flattered. He can't tell if it's charisma or flirting. But then again, he's rarely differentiated between the two himself. A part of him wonders what Hancock's skin feels like but there's also another part of him that's mildly repulsed; but he's wearing a t-shirt, and so through the sleeves all he feels is heat and pressure. "Heh, well. Wasn't afraid none of Charlie, but, you got me," He holds up his empty hand, a small surrender, "I'm just not really used to this."

"Mercenary work?"

"Kinda." He swallows a too-big gulp of beer, and the flavor lingers. "I'm from the vault."

"I know." Hancock's eyes shift. He raps his knuckles against the bar top. "Charlie, my man, a refill and a drink for my friend here."

When Sole looks up there's a glass already in front of him; he's not sure if the robot already knew what Hancock was going to ask. Maybe he does this often. But he's not going to reject it, not when his bottle is almost empty, not when he’s got less than twenty caps to his name. He drains the rest of his beer in one long pull, throat opening, and settles the bottle down with a clink.

Charlie's pincers hesitate before taking the bottle away.

"Thanks," Sole's fingers fan out before he grabs the glass. Liquor tastes better than beer nowadays. Not that anyone in the wasteland would know. "I, uh. I appreciate it. Not used to this much, either."

"Whiskey?"

Sole grins. "Nah. I'm used to whiskey, I'm from the Southeast Commonwealth." He pauses, "I meant people being polite again. The kindness thing again, y'know. I'll get your next round." It's only right, even as broke as he is. But Hancock shakes his head.

"Don't sweat it. You're my guest, here. Don't mind buying you a few drinks."

He feels like a guest, but also feels like he's on display. Hancock continues, "So, what were you before you were a mercenary?"

Sole laughs, keeps his gaze downward. "I was about the same. But, I ain't really truly a mercenary, now. I just do odd jobs. Just, the odd jobs that need doin' usually end up with something splattering." He grins easily into his glass, glancing over at Hancock. The ghoul's smiling too, and it's surprisingly soft, for how harsh his features are.

"Huh," Hancock shrugs, "I've never heard of a vault-dweller that's a mercenary. And I haven't heard of any Vault down near Quincy, either."

Quincy? And that's when he remembers-- everyone calls this 'the commonwealth'. Maybe they didn't know, that they were actually divided up, had names. And even then, people referred to themselves as coming from the states that had merged, now provinces. Or, was provinces. He wishes he knew enough about Boston to construct a semi-convincing lie, even if he hates doing it.

Half-truths will work without making his skin crawl: "Oh, I uh, came up from the Southeast Commonwealth. Not in Boston-area proper, but further south. Bit of a hike."

For a split second, Hancock's eyes narrow. Sole knows he doesn't look like he crawled out of a vault and then trekked it out over miles and miles. He hasn't got the teeth or the nails or the scars for that.

And maybe he's not smart enough to construct a good lie, but he knows a half lie is better than a full truth. He's glad he's not wearing his vault suit; though even if he was, most people don't recognize the triple ones on the back. Vault 111 was tucked away so well and nobody ever came out of it; most people who did know of the vault's existence probably assumed they were all dead or still sealed up in there, like a tomb. Which wouldn't be far from the truth.

"Never met anyone from down there. Must be nice, considering there's no ghouls over that way." Hancock says wryly, running his fingers around the rim of his glass.

Sole huffs. He can feel his ears going red as an embarrassed grin worms its way over his face. "Yeah, I know, I fucked up real bad with that one."

Hancock folds his hands all delicate-like under his chin. He's clearly busting Sole's balls, but he still feels bad, even as Hancock faux-flutters his eyes at him. "I mean, you're the one deprived of seeing our gorgeous mugs for so long."

Sole laughs in his beer. Hancock tells him about Goodneighbor; that, as Mayor, it's really his duty to make sure he's well versed in the town. There's a part of him that believes Hancock may actually come and introduce every scabbied wastelander from here to Sanctuary that wanders in, but another part of him has a flattering feeling he's just being kind. He verbally writes him a map of the general area; notes Daisy and KLEO, and where to find a doctor, the best place to grab a bite to eat. Rexford is where there are rooms, but Daisy sells sleeping bags and there's occasionally spaces out in the open shacks if he wants something a little more cheaper and doesn't mind roughing it.

"Now, I like to promote local business, but as an astute entrepreneur myself," Hancock says with a little flourish, pushing his empty glass towards Charlie at the edge of the bar, "I'd recommend here, of course, for drinks, and if you need anything other than stimpacks and low quality med-x, come to me instead of Fred Allen. Marowski doesn't give him the good shit."

"Huh, interestin'," Sole leans in, smirking a little; he barely notices Charlie pluck the glass hanging precariously from his fingertips, or his disparaging under the breath grumble about freeloaders. "You really know this place back and front, huh?"

Two drinks are set on the table, and Sole and Hancock each take one, knuckles bumping against the glass and each other. It's a split second. His skin feels dry, and rough. Cracked. But his knuckles are, too, split open and healed over so many times.

"Well, I am the mayor."

"Yeah, well, not all mayors are that hands-on, y'know."

Hancock leans in. "Oh, I am very hands-on."

Sole wonders if ghouls can blush. He can't see any difference on Hancock, but the lighting is low and dingy in the bar. But this close, he reckons if there were any unburst capillaries underneath that skin, he would see them. Maybe not. Maybe Hancock just doesn't blush-

"You alright?"

Sole blinks, and laughs. "Yeah. Just thinkin'."

Hancock smirks as he settles back in his chair, keeping his eyes on Sole. He runs a finger around the wet rim of the glass. "Don't strain yourself." When Sole lifts his glass to his mouth, he lets his throat open up, doesn't taste the liquor being poured down it.

Hancock laughs, knowingly, again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of love that drifter lady ghoul with the grey coif and the leather outfit in Goodneighbor. She's my favorite. Thanks for all of the comments and kudos! Comments give me so much life y'all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Big Dig, part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning that in this chapter things jump to explicit. Thank you so much for all the comments and kudos, they mean so much to me!

  
"Hey, you looking for work?"

He's not sure who he was expecting. He doesn't try to expect much, nowadays. He's proved wrong, good and bad, more often than not. "What kind of work?"

Bobbi No-Nose smiles Cheshire-wide behind the open slot of the metal door, her ghoulified skin crinkling at the corners of her eyes. "It's good work. Under the supervision of the best boss you'll ever have."

Sole doesn't like to think he's an easily intimidated man. He's taller than ninety percent of the current populace and he completed two tours in Anchorage; he can swing a bat so hard he's separated a raider's skull from his neck like the world's most violent game of teeball. He once broke a man's arm in the canteen hopped up on psycho during an overly furious arm wrestling match.

And it's not the fact that Bobbi No-Nose is a ghoul. Sole's found plenty of non-feral ghouls in Goodneighbor, of varying builds and livelihoods. There's a sweet thing in leather with a perfectly rolled silver coif that catcalls him whenever they pass in the streets. Kent is kind, if incredibly sad behind the eyes. Ham he respects, but he's not intimidated by him; he's met plenty of bouncers in his life, and though he's sure they'd be evenly matched if push came to shove. But that's not what intimidation is made of.

Bobbi No-Nose shouldn't be intimidating. Sole's relieved when the small slot in the door closes and the locks disengage; he folds his too large body as he shuffles into the block of a room through the barely opened door, closing it fast behind him. She just hits the low five foot range in height, with a curled bob and heavily hooded eyes that are piercing behind their lull. She takes his hand in a way that's both firm and feels as if she's going to slip like oil right out of his grasp.

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am." He's been trying to break himself of formalities learned from his upbringing and then the army, but it escapes too natural when Bobbi looks down at him past the frayed edges of her nasal cavity; he falls back, curls his shoulders in and hunches over when he shakes her hand.

Her eyes light up, "Ohh, you're a Southern man, aren't you? Haven't heard an accent like that in a long while."

Her hand slides out of his, and Sole shoves his palms into the front pockets of his jeans and slouches over. They feel sweaty against the rough grain of the denim. "Outer Banks, ma'am."

Her eyes narrow as she smiles. "You know, they're called the Glowing Banks, now." Sole feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. But she doesn't press it. She just smiles wide and pulls the pack of cigarettes tucked in the front pocket of her vest with nicotine stained fingernails. She's small enough that he's sure she's wearing a suit from the boy's section of Fallon's. "You're an interesting type. You wouldn't be here if you weren't really looking for work."

He mumly nods as she plucks a cigarette out and lights it, the flame throwing her radiation ravaged face into harsh shadows. When she offers him one, he quietly deigns out of politeness, though he wants to accept.

Goodneighbor had called to him where Diamond City had failed. The jobs there were sparse and scarce; Diamond City had plenty of jobs with little pay off and a lot of footwork. Retrieving plants and baseball paraphernalia and paint, and the caps were so little that he spent half of it in supplies and the other half in room and board. The Newspaper wanted a pro-bono interview. He couldn't cut hair, couldn't skin an animal, couldn't bartend to save his life. The only mercenary work they posted was tacked up on the wall, with pay being whatever they could scavenge from the site itself. How was he to know what was worth money and what wasn't in this new world? He brought in fat stacks of bundled bills once and received an offer for fifty caps or they could make the useless currency into the stuffing of a chair cushion for a payment of twenty caps. Small jobs for chump change.

Goodneighbor, they said, was dirty. Goodneighbor was seedy enough to have jobs, to bring in caps, and fast. He just hadn't been sure where to go. Nursing a single drink for as long as possible, before the unsaid pressure of Charlie squinting at him across the bar top with a serious stink-optic made him collapse and buy another. Sole overheard people talking; In Goodneighbor, you needed to saddle up with a group, a gang. The word ‘gang’ left a more distasteful film on his palate than the cheap liquor in his drink ever could. He would do mercenary work. That, he had decided the morality on quickly enough being out in the wasteland. He didn't have the choice.

But no children. No civilians. (He had more rules on his own than the Government had ever enforced during his two stints out in Anchorage.)

She takes one more look at him before turning and opening the large warehouse doors. Like all wasteland houses, the inside is completely trashed. But unlike the other houses, it doesn’t look particularly lived in, other than the empty bottles lining the walls. "It's simple. You look like a strong enough man for the job. It's manual labor," Bobbi continues, walking him down. The decrepit building falls away at an incline, giving way to dirt on all sides, tunnels dimly lit by oil lamps snaking downward. He has to duck his head not to hit himself on the low ceiling. "We're doing a dig."

"A dig?" He hesitates, "That's it?"

"That's all you need to know, for now. You okay with manual labor?"

Relief, strangely, washes over him. No killing. He can work an honest day for an honest wage. "Yeah, that's fine."

She leads him down the hall, pushing open a door as she goes."Good." They enter what can only be described as a cavern. Far away, Sole can hear the sounds of other people, the sound of tools being used. He automatically grabs one of the shovels against the wall, testing its weight in his hands. "50 caps to start."

Sole twists the shovel in his hands, glancing over at Bobbi. "50?"

She smirks around the cigarette drooping from her thin lips. "Oh, come on, kid. What do you think this is, 2077?" She says; it sounds maybe a bit too knowingly, and Sole ducks his head, swallowing a current of unease down his throat. Her laugh echoes and vibrates off the walls. "Make sure you pick up a helmet, while you're down here. Wouldn't want to dent in that smooth skull of yours. The other two are digging already."

She's already walking back up when he lifts his head to look at her, calling over her shoulder, "Go make yourself useful."

Sole does as he's told. He walks down the crumbling steps of the cavern, stopping to pluck the first mining helmet he sees from a pile of bones that have mostly dissolved into dust; he pours the helmet over, lets any dust and dirt and debris fall out onto the ground. He has to lean his shovel against the wall and take off his newsboy cap, wiping his brow with it first before shoving it crumpled into his back pocket. He picks the shovel back up, swinging it in tight circles as he walks down.

"... what a shit job."

"You're telling me. Thought Bobbi wouldn't do us this dirty."

There's a loud clang of a shovel practically being thrown. "Aw, knock it with the shitty puns, Clark," The voices of the two men already down there drift up as he approaches, punctuated by the noise of shovels clanging, and the heavy shift of dirt.

"Wasn't doing no damn puns, you ass! You find a lot of shitty humor for someone who don't like it."

They're average-looking for Wastelanders. A few missing teeth, dirty skin, slight of stature. They don't pay Sole any mind as he stops short of the site itself to start shrugging off his heavy pack and weaponry to set aside, bickering amongst themselves. "Cause I'm always expecting it from you!"

The one man's voice starts to rise, "Will you lay off me and just fucking work!"

"Well, I could, if you weren't bothering the hell out of me."

"Shut up, would you? I think we can finally make it through."

Sole pulls his helmet low over his brow. It feels unnaturally hot down here. He's already starting to shrug off his armor, peeling away the dull, dirty pieces of carapace that covered the bright blue of his vault suit, starting from the bottom at his shin guards and working his way up.

"Want to see what's on the other side?"

The one man leans heavily against his shovel, gesturing forward. "Sure, what the hell. Watch yourself."

Sole is barely paying attention, letting the other man's grunts of exertion fall into the background. The wall is practically rubble by now. Both of his shin guards are sitting on the ground and his hands are starting on the buckles to his chest piece when he hears the first shrill click. Sole's hands go still.

There's another, than another. He watches the man backaway from the source of the sound, the far wall, the heel of his boot driving right through the semi-soft shell of a mirelurk egg.

"Bobbi can take this job and shove it!" The first man turns just as the second trips over him; they fall in a screaming heap, and a helmet complete with miners light falls and bounces off into a corner. The mirelurks are still shaking the mud off of themselves as they stagger forward, and they barely scramble up the stairs, dropping their shovels in a heap. They don't even give him a second glance as they run past.

Sole glances around; he's not sure how the other men hadn't noticed the half-broken clutches of mirelurk eggs glistening wetly near where they had abandoned their shovels, or maybe they naively hadn't cared. He gives their breeding grounds wide berth, but he knows how to deal with them. His bullets are too low impact for their shells; he can fire more than he can count in a minute, but they won't go far past the exoskeleton, and unless he aims successfully for their face they'll swarm him too fast and cut him up into ribbons; his only bet with their armor is the bat on his back that he's already swinging off and through the air as they scuttle close, their legs clacking wetly against the stone.

What Sole hates the most about mirelurks is that clicking. Everything clicks and clacks; their feet on the ground, their oversized, serrated pincers, the small, alien mouth gnashing wetly together as their beady eyes swivel around. They don't look like the blue crabs he used to be able to pick and eat by the dozen at wooden picnic benches on warm, summer nights, before the prices got too steep with the war and overfishing.

They might be related to another crab, but they don't got the long sharp legs of snow crabs or king crabs. They're all flat and armored, and though he's sure radiation can twist people up something awful, it's a lot to expect a small blue crab to look like these hunchbacked crustacean abominations, even with two centuries and a lot of nuclear fallout to boot.

The first one swivels to focus on him, hunching over as it scuttles forward. Sole uses the entire length of his bat to smack at it; he curves his unsteady swing upward, more trying to throw it off balance and wrench its gaze upward to cause any real damage. He needs it to expose its face; the first time he had tried to kill a mirelurk, he had gotten his bat lodged into its shell. That bat had been left to the 'lurk, and he'd booked it out of there so fast Sole's sure he left smoke in the wake of his heels. The damn thing was still probably lurching around to this day, a broken bat buried in it even through the softening and shedding of shells, like a testament to their resilience.

He bats at it again. The mirelurk stumbles backwards, just as the other approaches. One is easy to handle; two is trickier. He has to go back and forth, parrying them, until one stumbles back enough and he can swing for the face. Animals don't seem to understand bullets as much, won't get scared away by the gesture of a gun, especially not when infringing on their breeding grounds. But they understand the stick.

A claw moves, faster than its size would suggest possible, trying to clip the wood in two; Sole jerks it up and into the Mirelurk's face. It gurgles in pain, and as it stumbles back from the blow, he swings again for the soft, tender face.

It goes down; the second mirelurk lurches forward, and Sole cannot react in time; he throws his arms up, and its claw connects with the plate guards strapped tight to his forearm, squeezing. The serrated edges sink and scrape into the armor.

Sole shouts as the bullet goes through the meat of the Mirelurk's face, slimy flecks coating his face as the dead weight of the creature and the utter surprise sends Sole falling back onto his ass. It knocks the breath right out of him, the hard shell nearly knocking him in the face, seeing stars behind his eyes. He wheezes, staring straight up at the dripping, cave ceiling.

The clipped noise of Bobbi's smart shoes approach closer; he has to blink when her face peers down at him and wavers into view.

"What is going on in my tunnel?" Bobbi speaks at a deadpan, though annoyance is creeping in at the edges. Sole heaves the dead mirelurk off of him and to the opposite of Bobbi, wiping at his face. It only ends up smearing the fishy smelling gore across his cheek and nose. There's a gob of something wet hanging heavy in his eyelashes in the corner of his vision.

"You never told me there were mirelurks." He's suddenly very exhausted.

She arches a hairless brow. "Hadn't known. It's going to take a lot more than a couple of mirelurks to stop me."

He doesn't want to say that she hadn't fought them, besides. But he bites his tongue. He should ask for an advance, but--

"Well, you stuck around at least." She has one hand crossed over her chest, the other gesturing towards Sole, blustering onward. "So, I guess you're promoted. You get to be my new gun. I think we just need one more guy." She pauses. This promotion feels far from congratulatory from her deadpan tone. Sole is listening, but he knows he's too dazed to reply in any real way, so he just nods. "An old friend. He'll want a fair cut, but we saw where being cheap got me."

Sole blinks. Silence stretches before them, before he finally croaks. "This isn't just a dig?"

Bobbi smiles, and ignores him. She reaches into her back pocket; the caps hit his chest piece with the kind of tinny clang that echoes in the cave and his ears. The way the swollen bag slumps over the concave of his armor makes him think there's more than fifty caps in there. "I have some things to check out in Diamond City," She says it as if it's the answer to a question he had asked. "Head over to the noodle shop there, and I'll meet you when I finally finish up some business and you..." She points, "Get cleaned up, and we'll continue from there."

\--

Tagging along with a trade caravan at the crack of dawn means Sole makes it to Diamond city without any incident by noon. The sun is just starting to settle at its highest peak, and the general bustle of the morning market has lulled somewhat due to the heat of the day. There are enough people under the shade of the noodle shop's seating that Sole doesn't see Bobbi right away; and when he starts to look, he can't find her anywhere. He circles the area, ignoring as Takahashi tries to rattle off his garbled, unknown question. He has a sinking feeling, as he passes around for the second time, that he took too long, and Bobbi has left for greener pastures and more seasoned workers--

"Sole?"

He whirls around.

"Yes, it's me." Sole looks towards the voice. It sounds like-- oh. The woman sitting in a gas mask swivels on the bar stool to look at him. The only thing recognizable about her is her bob, carefully fitted around the gas mask on her face; her body is obscured with a heavily layered coat and she's wearing gloves to cover her hands. Too hot for this weather. He can practically hear her eyes rolling. "I have to hide my face around these parts."

Sole hesitates, but he slides into an open seat next to her. A bowl of noodles sit in front of her, untouched. He's half tempted to ask her if she's going to eat those, but refrains: "You do?"

"People like me aren't allowed around here."

Takahashi ambles over to them, having seen that there is a new customer. Sole waves the robot off before he can ask. "Wait, what's that supposed to mean?"

Sole can't see Bobbi's face, and her posture is very tight, very polite, feet crossed at the ankles. She looks like a spring tightly coiled. "When McDonough ran a decade and change ago, that was his go-to platform. Scapegoats are big with politicians. They're very placating for the dumb and disenfranchised."

Sole glances around them. He can put two and two together, as plenty of fresh-faced people walk around in light layers, and Bobbi is sweltering under her coat and mask. He had thought Diamond City nice enough; but then again, he hadn't met a ghoul that didn't want to tear him in two until Goodneighbor. It had never occurred to him before. Now that he knows it's not just a coincidence, that it took so long to see them. That a lot of people never even spoke of a ghoul beyond the scope of a feral.

She doesn't seem very interested in speaking about the past, though. She looks moments away from snapping her fingers in front of Sole's face to distract him back to her, like a child with a quickly thinning attention span. "Now let's get down to business. That big wall of glass looming over Diamond City is the mayor's office." Bobbi doesn't point towards it, but Sole finds his gaze drawn over. "Most people don't know it, but there's a strong room buried underneath. Mayor's just sitting on top of it. And that's our target." Bobbi has to clear her throat to regain his attention, talking low and steady: "I managed to track down my tech guy. His name's Mel and he's right here in Diamond City. The guy can make a gadget to solve any problem. Thing is, he's a bit locked up right now. You have to get him out of there. I can't just stroll into Diamond City security with this face, covered or not."

Bobbi's voice rattles in her mask, the hoses constricting as she breathes in. "Pick a lock, find a key, bribe a guard." Sole blinks away from the impassive look of the mask. "The usual stuff. Just get him out of there."

Sole nearly pushes himself off from the barstool, but he hesitates, fingers curled over the peeling edge of the re-purposed linoleum counters. "Bobbi?"

Her fingers drum expectantly on the table. "Yes."

"What's he in for? You know." His voice lowers, gaze shifting around, "Since I'm the one who's going to be breaking him out. Nothing like, I don't know..." And he trails off, because he can't think of anything too terrible in this brave new world that people don't do. He hadn't even known they had a jail. What's the point, when death was usually the most swiftly dispensed punishment?

Bobbi tilts her head. "Oh, he's not that kind of-- this is Diamond City. It's glorified time-out down there. Who knows, they could have put him in because he tried to slip the bartender fake caps or stole someone's sweet roll."

It's nothing terrible, at least. A benign crime. But still, a crime. Sole's hanging off the edge of his stool, one foot hooked into the barstool and one on the ground.

Bobbi pauses, then adds, slowly, "McDonough has it coming if you ask me. With how he treats my kind, maybe he deserves worse."

Sole exhales, his brow furrowing. And it is true. Something like that-- there's nothing wrong with ghouls, really, and that was pretty abhorrent, to push a whole group out like that on a what-if. He knows he shouldn't be the judge of punishment. But, he knows there isn't much of a judicial system anymore. There aren't anymore lawyers. "That's... yeah. That's right. He does. That ain't right."

"So," Bobbi practically hums, "What do you say we make this party a little bigger?"

\--

"Fuck, fuck, fuck--"

Sole's hips inch forward, his eyes focused on the slope of Mel's freckled back peaking out from the edge of his bunched up shirt, the indent his fingers make in the flesh of his hips, and the sight of his cock slowly being sheathed in him.

He's had back alley fumblings before, even ones just as literal as this one. He can't even remember what he had said to the guard to get Mel out, not at this time, not with their pants around their ankles. Few kisses he's ever had started with, "Well, thanks for letting me out." With 'out' referring to penitentiary. Mel's back arches obscenely as he pushes in, but to his credit, he's much quieter than Sole. In the dim light of the alley, he can focus on those brown freckles, connect them with the goosebumps that are rising in the brisk night breeze, and not the way he can feel Mel flex tight around him and drag across his cock.

His words tumble out in a jumble: "Holy shit, you're so good. So good--"

"You're so damn loud."

"M'sorry--" He doesn't say, it's been more than two centuries, and he's a bit overwhelmed right now, so Sole presses the slope of his forehead between Mel's shoulder blades as he starts to move his hips, drawing out his thrusts; he nearly pulls back fully, right to the edge of the glans, before thrusting in with one hard, fluid motion.

Mel gasps too loud against the brickwork he's crowded against. He moans, quiet, but the sound of it is drowned by the sound of the radio eyebot approaching, throwing a long shadow down the alley as it passes by.

Pulling out, Sole pushes in again. And again. Cole Porter's warble sounds further and further away as the eyebolt ambles off along the path of the bases, replaced with the sound of his hard thrusts, his murmured praises.

Reaching back, Mel's hand forms a sudden vice on the back of Sole's neck, pulling him in, flexing in warning as he hisses a strangled shush.

They press themselves flush into the corner of the wall as a guard walks past them, slow, pausing to strain his hearing. But they are silent. As soon as he passes, Sole exhales his breath as a groan, hips shifting up in a jagged motion, like plates shifting.

"God almighty," Sole's voice breaks on the last syllable.

He can't stop flexing his fingers into the flesh of Mel's hips. Mel shifts underneath him: "Did you come?"

Sole presses his forehead to the back of Mel's neck, his chest heaving with shallow gulps. His skin is sticky with sweat. "No. Give me a second."

"Christ-" Mel hisses, annoyance tinged with amusement. Sole can hear him stroking his cock furiously, the sound of flesh on flesh. He feels like his hands are tripping over themselves, but he manages to fumble them around Mel and bat his hands away to replace with his own. He's heavy in his hand, the other dipping low to cup his balls, his hips moving idly despite his cock quickly softening in him.

Sole is rusty, he knows, but he goes fast and his lips find the soft skin behind his ear, his earlobe, bites down and sucks hard. The eyebot makes its second round as Mel groans out his release. _"I roam around around around..."_ Cum drips between his fingers and over Sole's knuckles.

They part. Sole chuckles, and Mel's voice joins him, quiet and stifled like kids nearly caught past curfew. He doesn't even know if Diamond City has vulgarity laws, but he can imagine the look on Bobbi's face realizing the muscle she had sent in not only couldn't extradite the brains, but got himself locked up in the process. Mel twists around, his knees somewhat buckling as he leans up against the wall.

"Huh." Sole mumbles to himself, as he rolls off the condom. He starts to tie up the end one-handed.

"What?"

His smile's a bit lopsided when he glances up at Mel. "This is 200 years old."

Mel barks out a laugh. "Oh, no. I don't go for the scavenged ones, they're flimsy as hell. These kind the merchants get out on the west coast and bring 'em back."

"Oh, I meant," Sole sucks in a breath as Mel arches a brow expectantly at him. And then Sole's mouth snaps closed, because really, is the best way to break the ice on his status as a pre-war relic to infer how old the spunk in the spent condom was. He tosses it to the ground, away from them. When he pulls up his boxers, his thighs feels sticky. He wonders if his room at the Bobrov's will include a shower. "Yeah, okay."

Mel arches an eyebrow at him, buckling his pants up. He's handsome in the light of the moon, narrow face and features, a ruddy complexion mellowed by the blue cast of the night. "So, you're Bobbi's new toy?"

Sole laughs, grin lopsided. "Toy? Just hired help."

"But Bobbi, right?" He's lighting up a cigarette. Sole doesn't have to ask; after a few long inhales, he passes it over as he exhales it politely away. "No one else would put in this much effort for me."

"You're awful hard on yourself."

Mel smirks. "And you're awful charming."

"Weren't much getting you out." He doesn't have the stomach for lying, but he can be charismatic when he needs to be. The guards are generally rough men, but their apathy towards their jobs worked in Sole's favor. "Really."

Mel shakes his head. It's a funny conversation to be having post-coitus. "Do you know Bobbi?" Sole asks, then adds, "Well, I mean."

Mel snorts. "Yeah. Enough. Worked with her a few times before. Not the most trustworthy person around. And she always was impatient. God, that woman doesn't have a patient bone in her body." He huffs out a breath that's not quite a laugh, annoyance fogging up the edges of his words. "I wasn't serving a life sentence, here. What, she couldn't wait like, a day?"

"S'pose not." Sole takes only one drag before handing it back. He hooks his thumbs into the loops of his jeans. "She always rush jobs?"

"Sometimes." Mel says, "Keeps up the air of mystery, y'know. Surprised she hasn't chewed you up and spit you out, yet."

Sole lets the chuckle roll around in his mouth as he ducks his head and shoulders, a gentle gesture for someone who stood a head above Mel. He's getting used to this now, everyone able to see through him like he's some wilting flower on the window boxes of Sanctuary. Though he's sure Bobbi has swallowed up bigger, stronger people than himself before with little effort. "You underestimatin' me like this doesn't think you're going to trust me to be the muscle when we break into the Diamond City stronghold."

"Well damn. That's a big score" Mel trails off. The crickets aren't half as loud in the city as the multitude of generators that are attached to every house and home, humming as they putter along. He's gotten used to the hum, but sometimes it startles him, how loud it is. "Bobbi may be shady, but she always pays up in the end. And you look like a good choice of muscle, if you're as good with that bat on your back as you are with the one between your legs."

Sole rubs his mouth, his large hand covering the bottom of his face. He laughs behind it, shakes his head.

Mel laughs, too. He passes the cigarette back, and Sole takes it, his mouth pink around the filter. Their fingers are warm, but don't linger. "Well--" He can't think of anything half as witty or charming as a come back, so he just smiles and shakes his head again. "We'll see, won't we?"

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Big Dig

"Got yourself into trouble again, Mel?"

"Mmn, you could say that." Sole doesn't have to see his face; he can hear his smirk echoing up the stairwell. "I learned from the best."

"I'm flattered."

Sole doesn't mean to eavesdrop. Everything seems to echo in the cavern and funnel up to his ears as he comes walking down from the haphazard squatters den Bobbi has been living in as she paid wastelanders to dig through the earth of Boston. They must be too wrapped up in each other, too, because he's never been the sneakiest; with his size, he practically tromps down the stairs.

"Speaking of-- the new guy? Where'd you find him?"

"Came to me, actually. He takes orders and he's useful in a fight. What more could I want?"

And this is why he doesn't like overhearing things, much, not counting how rude it was. His ears are red. It's strange, because Mel's words have a tint of sexual, but Bobbi's sound predatory. There's a difference, and it's not entirely good.

"And he's not so bad to look at, either. Maybe we don't burn bridges this time, yeah?"

He sees their backs, standing on the roughly hewn stones leading to the bottom of the dig site. The corpses of the earlier mirelurks are still lying where he last left them. Death has made them rigid, and more importantly, frightfully odorous. Sole clears his throat as he approaches. When Mel turns, his face changes to something friendly, if not surprised. Sole's not sure if Bobbi could ever look relaxed. She has her arms crossed tight over her chest. Her eyebrows raise.

"It was about time."

Sole jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "Slow goin' through the city, the raiders have been acting up. Bad batch of chems probably going through."

Above Mel's head, a small robot putters around, floating. Recognizable as an eyebot, sure, but heavily modified. They weren't even half as common around the suburbs as Mr.Handys had been; generally they stuck to the city or shopping centers, warbling out advertisements for new Nuka Cola flavors or cars nobody could really quite afford after the gas increases and the riots in Detroit.

This one is more heavily modded than anything he's ever seen, though, and nothing standard in the ways of mounted lasers or munitions; the entire face of the eyebot's stereo grid is covered with a strange metal funnel. He was never one for robotics, but whatever this barrel shoots, it seems too large and too strange for basic munitions. He remembers seeing the eyebots bobbing around Canada during his sick leave, too. _"Americans are your brothers! With your cooperation, we can win the fight against communism!"_

This one is silent. Mel steps into his frame of view. "That's Sonya," He answers his unasked question with a smile. There's a tinge of pride in his voice he can't hide when he speaks. "Made her myself."

Sole whistles in appreciation, but he can't take his eyes off the bobbing machine. "That's pretty good, isn't it? It looks different than the ones I'm used to."

Bobbi watches them as Mel circles around. Sonya follows behind him, the air below her body warping from the propulsion drives keeping her afloat. "Yeah, kitted her out. She's what's going to get us through to the Diamond City strong room."

Sole keeps his hands in his pockets. She floats higher than the others, but Sonya is about eye level with him, not that the robot has any eyes. "She has supersonic pulses that can tunnel right through the rock. Bobbi has a map; we'll be going through some of the metro tunnels, but just taking detours when we can."

Sole glances at Bobbi, "So no digging on my end, then?" She looks somewhat between annoyed and bemused at his question, her sparse eyebrows furrowing. "That's uh, that's good."

"You're going to be our muscle." She fans a hand out towards the tunnel, the cadence of her words pulling out slow. "You never know what types you're going to find in the underbelly of the city."

The sack of caps Bobbi had unceremoniously dumped on his chest a few days prior had been more money he had come into since waking up in the Vault; probably worth more than anything he had gotten in recent years before the bombs, either. Between Diamond City and Goodneighbor he had stocked up on ammunition and had KLEO look at his rifle and bat for any major faults. It's not that Mel and Bobbi aren't armed-- Mel has a pistol and Bobbi has a submachine gun befitting her Pall Mall wise-guy getup.

But neither of those could pierce a mirelurk shell easily. Aiming for the small, fleshy triangle of their face was almost always more chance than skill in the heat of a battle.

Sonya makes neat work of where the walls are especially thin; the bright blue blast of energy makes Sole's ears ring. When the dust settles, they move single-file. Sonya floating at the front, Sole with his bat brandished, then Mel and Bobbi, trailing a healthy distance behind. And true to Bobbi's word, there are mirelurks, angry, chittering things that lunge immediately for Sole as him and Sonya burst through every crumbled wall. Mel and Bobbi take up the rear, shooting at eggs and any of the hatchlings waiting to sink their surprisingly sharp teeth through layers of leather boots and socks.

Sonya is surprisingly helpful; her laser isn't particularly powerful, but it's extremely accurate, and it's just painful enough that every zap to a mirelurk's face makes it stagger backwards so Sole can manage the onslaught of frenzied crustaceans. He's sweating and breathing heavily by the time they're done, but he doesn't have a scratch on him.

An egg crunches satisfyingly underfoot as Sole steps over a fresh mirelurk corpse. Bobbi scoffs. "Mirelurks. Disgusting. Do you know people eat these?"

Mel picks his way much more carefully through the carnage, patting Sonya's side as he passes her. "A good cook can really change them. I'll only eat them in a 'lurk cake."

When Sole lifts his foot, something green and reminiscent of a yolk sticks to his heel. It has the viscosity of snot. He tries to grind his shoes in a clean patch of dirt. "How do the eggs taste?" He wonders, too late, if that sounds too stupid, if he's supposed to be playing the part of a seasoned wastelander. He's not very good at lying.

"Fishy." Bobbi replies flatly. She lays one hand flat against the walls, the other rapping with knuckles against the rock. "There should be a metro somewhere close by. Listen for anything hollow."

Mel bumps into Sole's side as he makes his way to the wall. He glances back over his shoulder, flashing Sole some sort of expression "I don't think the meat tastes that bad. Be better in a stew. Kind of reminds me of okra--" Sole continues, then corrects, "A rad-okra."

Mel scrunches his face. Sole can somehow hear Bobbi's eyes roll with her back turned towards them. "Over here!"

"Gotcha. Sonya, do your thing."

They break through two more walls, each leading them through what might at one point had been actual mining caverns, but were now no more than tunnels for mirelurks to lives and breed. He feels bad about leaving the carcasses here, when usually he has to pay for his meals in promises and scrap metal, but it occurs to Sole he doesn't really know much about skinning an animal anyway, much less cracking open a crab of this size. He wouldn't even know what was edible.

The last wall they blast through collapses with more dust than any of the previous ones had. Even with the thick, white stuff clouding their eyes, there was an immediate change in the air around them. No longer the earthy smell combined with the fishy smell of mirelurks, but something a little fresher. The remains of the metro lies before them. A haunting bong travels through the tunnels. Sole involuntarily shivers. He never took them before the war; he had moved to Boston after Anchorage, and he never got a job after coming home. Anytime he came into the city, he usually took the bus all the way through, since it picked up at a stop near Sanctuary. Nora took them occasionally, to meet Washington bigwigs at restaurants where the dinners were all expenditured to their accounts.

"Good, we're making progress," Bobbi murmurs in her gravelly voice, gesturing forward. Sole steps over the edge of the hole.

Something is already stirring from the sound of Sonya's blast. Sole can feel Mel behind him, peering over his shoulder. "Ghouls!" And then, he pauses, "Um, the bad ones. Feral ghouls!"

Feral ghouls scare the shit out of him. He saw his first one wandering around Walden Pond; vaguely human, but misshapen from decay and the moistness of the near swamp the pond had become. He would have turned tail if Mr. Abernathy hadn't been behind him to back them up.

Feral ghouls take well to the assault rifle; it tears through their soft skin like paper, separating limbs and ligaments like pulling petals off a daisy. Sole doesn't like to use his bat on them. They get too close, he can feel that radiation heat. They get too close, and Sole swears most of their faces look too familiar, like he might find a next-door neighbor or the cashier at the nearby gas station.

But they're not dangerous, at least, not if you can pick them up before they swarm around you. They're slow to stand, but once there, all they seem to have is raw energy in an effort to fling themselves on top and maul the flesh from your bones. Mel tries to shout over the sound of his gun, but his words are indecipherable past Sole's assault rifle and the constant discharge of Bobbi's gun. Two bullets of his find their way into a ghoul who had only managed to get to their knees.

Sonya really is a marvel of technology. She zips her way through, shooting concentrated bursts of energy, specifically targeting the ones who have yet to get up, aiming for limbs and legs. Crippling ferals helps keep them from getting overwhelmed; they take a longer time to get up on broken legs, and can't run as fast to swarm. Sole focuses on the larger ferals, the ones that get within ten feet and make his Pip-boy crackle with radiation.

A feral falls only a few feet short of Bobbi, but she seems unperturbed as the barrel of her machine gun smokes. "No flesh off my face, but you two might want to watch out for the radiation around here."

Mel smirks. "The thing on this one's wrist has a Geiger counter equipped. I'll just keep my ears open for clicks." He moves in closer, shifting his conversation to a more private tone, "I didn't want to nerd over it, but a Robco Pipboy is a rare find, my friend."

Sole laughs quietly. "Well, I'm sure as hell glad I have one. You know, they play games?"

Mel shakes his head, seemingly amused, "Maybe you could let me look at it some time?"

When they walk over the ferals bodies, Sole makes sure to try and step on heads. It's entirely messy and unpleasant, the crunch and the slippery, slick feel underneath his boots, but he's never seen one get up with any severe damage to the skull. He just doesn't look down.

"Hm, maybe. But you have to promise not to kit it out with one of those things on the front." Sole gestures to Sonya's pulse.

Mel snorts in response, "What, you don't want to crush through walls and pipelines?"

Sole knows he's being too obvious, but it's hard not to, even though he can feel Bobbi's eyes roll through her head at ten feet away behind them. He flexes his arm with the Pipboy, watches Mel's face color. "Nah, I got that under control." He's almost expecting an admonishment from Bobbi as she walks past, but it's hard to really notice as she doesn't speak up and he's focused on the way Mel's grin on his freckled face has turned goofy.

The rest of their traveling goes as smoothly as it can. There are ferals, and there are mirelurks. He's thankful when all they see is the old remains of Mr. Handy's, but no surviving robots. He doesn't have anything laser on him, any EMP grenades, though they go down easy enough with a bat. He's been cut by the saw, before. He also doesn't trust Sonya around any other robot. There's ways to turn robots friendly, and switch the way turrets will aim their fire, but he doesn't know how it works, and there's a chance that one robot could see another robot and make the logical decision on which side to back. Bobbi complains about the wetness of her socks when they walk, single file, through a pipeline, and Mel has to dissuade Sole from trying to grab a pie from one of the vending machines multiple times.

He likes Mel. He makes him feel sort of normal, in a way that he hasn't felt in a long while. He doesn't mind Bobbi. At least, she's smart, and if this job turns out, maybe she can help him get others.

They gather in a room with another dead end. Sole immediately spots the section of the wall that looks softest; when he knocks on it, he can hear a hollow noise, pebbles falling under his knuckles. This would take barely a blast. Bobbi is surveying the area as Mel settles beside him. "If Bobbi's directions are correct--" Mel lowers his voice to add as an aside, "And I have my doubts," He continues, "The strong room should be right through here."

Sonya bobs in anticipation near Sole's head, focused towards the thin patch of wall in front of them. Sole keeps his voice low, like Mel's, though he doesn't doubt Bobbi can probably hear. "Really?"

"Yeah," Mel grins, glancing up and over at Sole, "What about we get a drink after this? On me."

Sole laughs. Still quiet, he replies, "Sounds good."

Mel holds the smile one beat longer before turning to Eyebot. "Alright. One more time, Sonya."

It feels good, to hear her pulse cleave the rock and watch it fall before them. They follow through the just made opening, and Bobbi gathers them together. It's an entirely nondescript space, filled with dirt and large, industrial sized pipes, along with smaller ones.

"Great, now my socks are wet." Bobbi complains. She frowns, and then gestures upward. "Well, guys, we're right under the Diamond City Stronghold."

"You sure this is the right place? I've been mapping it out and I think Diamond City should be a little further North of here."

Bobbi turns to look at Mel, "I don't have a doubt in my mind. How about a little trust in the boss?" He sucks in a breath, but simply nods. She smiles.

"Good. Can you get us through here?"

"The foundation is already crumbling..." Mel peers upward. There's a steady drip coming from one of the far corners of the ceiling. It doesn't seem solid at all, looking from the bottom up. Sole wonders how many other foundations he has walked over that look like this underneath. "One blast from Sonya and I bet this floor will come right down."

"Well then, make it so."

They exit the room together. Mel strays behind to relay instructions to Sonya. Bobbi's face hasn't changed, even though Sole can start to feel the beginning coils of excitement pulling tight in his belly. The thought of a bounty of caps... He could buy a suit of power armor. He could finally have the munitions and gear to go after--

"Are you ready?" Her drawl breaks his concentration. Sole grins, swinging his bat minutely with one hand and patting the rifle strapped to his side with the other. Bobbi shakes her head. "Oh, no. Don't worry about those. We shouldn't run into any trouble once we're up there."

Sole nods. Mel makes it to the mouth of the cave when Sonya's sonic blast goes off. They both turn at the sound of it, Sole flinching backwards. It's loud, and for a moment, his heart is in his throat at the sudden thought that they are so far under ground with the possibility of collapse not too out of the question.

Neither Mel nor Bobbi seem to have these fears. She's strolling into the dust while Mel bolts inside. "That didn't sound good-" Sole follows behind, coughing behind the crook of his elbow as the dust settles.

"No, no, no, Sonya!" There's real emotion behind Mel's words, his eyes wide, and then closing sharp at the sight of the robot's dented body crackling with broken fuses and wires.

He's on his knees in front of the remains of the foundation. It had crumbled and fell, as was the plan, but she hadn't been fast enough to avoid it. He has his hands cradled around the space of the smashed remains, as if he's afraid to touch what's left. The body has nearly been cleaved in half; the pulse emitter that had been mounted on the front is full of dirt and rocks.

Sole walks up behind him, careful. He puts a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, 'least nobody got hurt, right? I got a piece of tarp in my supplies somewhere, we can wrap it up in that and you can scav it for parts once we're done--"

Mel turns, and Sole pulls his hand away. "Do you mind?"

Sole can see Mel's throat working, swallowing reflexively. He pulls back, feels irritation creep in on the edges of his peripheral.

"Pull yourself together, Mel. We don't need that thing anymore anyway." Bobbi's voice drawls in. She looks unimpressed with his display. Sole squares his back, stands a little straighter.

"Whatever. You two don't understand--"

"You can make a new robot from the haul we get from the strongroom." She steps over Sonya's crackling body, her foot finding purchase in the rubble making a haphazard staircase upward for them. "Keep your head in the game."

Sole doesn't miss Mel's angry glare towards Bobbi's back. His movements are jerky as he pushes himself upward, slipping momentarily on the rubble. Sole goes to help him up, and Mel pulls away. "I'm fine."

There's another nondescript room above them. This is the first actual room with traces of life; there is dust but not as thick as it had been in the brewery basement or the metro tunnels, and some of the items look freshly disturbed. They enter through the metal door, with Bobbi leading the way, and Mel and Sole walking behind. Sole carries his bat, despite her reassurances. He doesn't trust that a strong room wouldn't be guarded in some way. The air is immediately different as they rise, and then Bobbi pushes open the door. It's dark past it, but not as dark as the tunnels had been; it's the kind of low light that Sole has recognized by now as the light of emergency lighting found in plenty of pre-war locations, still running off of their old nuclear cores.

Stepping out, he nearly bumps into Mel. This doesn't look like any sort of bank Sole's seen; if anything, it looks like a train station, complete with cars sitting rusted on unconnected tracks. He hadn't thought there was a train underneath Diamond City.

"Oh, Bobbi."

His gaze is drawn up and over, just as the flood lights kick in. Sole recognizes her right away by her mop of red hair piled atop her head. The sides are shaved with a kind of fade that showed a precision and care despite the haircut being so unruly. She's flanked by two other men, and fronted by a minigun that she holds with ease like a docile pup by the scruff of its neck.

Bobbi's lips twitch into an annoyed frown. "Oh, Fahrenheit."

Sole finds the part of his bat not driven through with nails bouncing tensely against his shoulder, eyes flitting from one figure to the other. They're familiar enough with each other that it almost sounds playful, if their bodies weren't dripping with mutual anger. He doesn't understand why the right hand man of Goodneighbor's mayor is currently in Diamond City's warehouse; he has a feeling of dread welling up in his stomach. If they both are going for the same payoff--

Some sort of comprehension slices through Mel, as his eager yet confused smile drops. "Seriously, Bobbi?" Mel's voice rises as he turns on her, his hands whipping out in frustration. "This is what your grand plan was?"

"He took you in, Bobbi, and you're stealing from him? I never took you to be dumb enough to try and cross Hancock." Fahrenheit continues.

Sole clears his throat. "We can share the payoff, split it around even?"

He is unilaterally ignored by everyone. Bobbi smiles, long and close lipped. Sole is expecting her to bare her teeth, for fangs to peel back from her radiation thin lips.

Fahrenheit looks down the slope of her nose at them. "I can see you didn't let either of them in on this."

"And why would I?" Bobbi drawls, crossing her arms over her chest. She does not look at Mel's furious glare, only up at Fahrenheit, in an effort to stare her down. "Everyone's afraid of that man, and for what?"

"I don't know, Bobbi." She tilts her head, and then, her minigun, "For what?"

Bobbi sucks her tongue in and clicks it loud against her front teeth. "I'm not talking you, princess." She does grin, this time, vicious and dark. "When's the last time someone shook something up around here?"

"You're fucking mental, Bobbi!" Mel suddenly snaps, "There's a reason everyone is afraid of Hancock! He lets a few people get away with a high charge on their chem tab and you think he's not going to hunt us all down by the end of it? That he's grown soft? The guy holds grudges!"

Bobbi barely expends the energy to glance back at Mel's outburst. "I thought we agreed, Mel, to let me do the planning, and you can handle the technology."

"This is a step too far!"

Sole looks around. If this is Diamond City... No. He can't remember anything like this near the diamond from way back when. This wouldn't make sense, this wooden barn structure, to be placed underneath the bleachers where the strong room supposedly lie--

"This isn't Diamond City," Sole says with trepidation.

Bobbi whips around, and the ferocity in her eyes startles Sole. "So what? This doesn't change anything. It is still the same job."

"You all just broke into Mayor Hancock's store room. You know, Hancock? The Mayor of Goodneighbor?" Sole feels Fahrenheit's pointed gaze as she leans up against a stack of crates. "You know what? Counter offer. Just go back into your tunnel and we can forget this ever happened." She pauses to swivel her gaze towards Mel, "No grudges held."

There's silence. Sole can feel perspiration clinging to the lining of his cap, soaking through. He hadn't been expecting foes above them. He's trying to work a preemptive strategy out in his mind, considering the men to her sides can shoot immediately, and it takes a moment for the machine gun to wind up, but there's nothing close by for them to dive behind or under. He wonders if Fahrenheit planned this.

"I'm not one to give up, but I know when I'm outmatched." She forces the words through her teeth.

In his peripheral vision, he can see Mel's shoulders sag. Probably more relief than disappointment. Neither of them were really built to withstand a firefight, and though he has no doubts they both wear enough layers to halt a smaller caliber bullet, a mini gun would have ripped them apart like tissue paper.

"This is the last time I trust you, Bobbi." Mel's voice is low, full of almost-shame. He doesn't want Fahrenheit to hear. Or probably Sole, either. He's hesitant to turn his back on three heavily armed people, but he does, following behind them. He still has this feeling that he's going to need to duck and cover at any second, that he's going to feel that familiar heat of a bullet lodging itself in his body.

"Sole," She calls out. It surprises him almost as much as a bullet would have. He glances over his shoulder. Fahrenheit cranes her neck. "Sole? I want a word."

Sole can feel his stomach bottom out. He turns to Mel, a little desperate. "Hey, you comin'?"

Mel throws up his hands. "No. I'm going to..." He shakes his head. "No. I lost too much already. Shows me, but I'm taking a break from the game, for a while."

Sole ducks his head. He can respect that. Mel's back joins Bobbi's through the entryway, but they don't seem to speak or convene together as the door shuts finitely behind them. He wishes he had come with him, but he supposes Mel has a robot carcass to collect from the rubble besides.

"Sole?" He has to shade his eyes, along with the brim of his cap, to look up directly at Fahren with the way the floodlights are shining behind her. She looks otherworldly. He wonders, though, if this was her idea or Hancock's. It seems too dramatic for her dry tastes. She's waiting on him. He turns away from the door.

Taking the short walk up the rickety stairs to the walkway is giving Sole heart palpitations. Fahrenheit's shorter than himself, like most wastelanders, but she's built solidly. He could manage to get in enough hits before her minigun managed to wind up, but the two gun hounds flanking her sides would tear him to bits after that. The worn wood creeks under his feet. Up close, Sole can see the freckles smattered against Fahrenheit's perpetually sunburnt nose and face that fade into a large, puckered scar on her right cheek. She has a kind of square jaw and aquiline nose that makes her look both regal and fortified. He's never seen her in any sort of light before, only the darkened corner of Hancock's office in the Old State House. "You made the right move. You had no idea, did you?" She's not smiling, but at least her voice almost sounds amused.

"I thought..." He rubs at the bottom half of his face, covering his mouth entirely with his hand. "I don't know. It started as just diggin' out some tunnels. Then it wasn't and it happened real fast." He holds out his hand in a defeated little gesture, "Wasn't even halfway through 'til I asked for more information. She said we were hitting up Diamond City bank, or somethin'."

"A bank?"

"Or..." He gestures lamely, trying to find another word, whatever the future equivalent might be. "The stronghold? Where they keep their money. I know they don't deserve that either, but to be honest, I ain't on the best of times at the moment and--"

"Diamond City is trash." Fahrenheit interrupts, calmly. "And I know what a bank is. Diamond City doesn't have one. You shouldn't have felt bad for cleaning them out if they did, though." She lowers her minigun gingerly to the ground; even though she's careful, the old wood planks shake under their feet. He's not a threat any longer. Sole doesn't have a weapon to lower, but he hooks his thumbs into the unused belt loops on his vault suit, keeps his hands busy with fidgeting, idle motions. "I believe you, though. You're making a name for yourself, but not the kind that would do something like this knowingly."

He glances up from his feet. "Really?"

She raises her eyebrows. "Really. Goodneighbor isn't a sleepy town by any stretch, but it's hard not to notice a guy who's snapping up jobs left and right in a vault suit." Giving him a pointed once-over, she shrugs, "And despite Bobbi's feelings on the mayor's ability, we do keep tabs on the going-ons in town."

He can practically feel the burn of the three numbers on his back. He tugs the front of his cap a little lower over his forehead. Fahrenheit squats to pick up her minigun, hefting it back up with a grunt. "If you're heading back, you can walk with us. Hancock has been wanting to talk to you again. He'll especially appreciate the loyalty."

\--

Hancock turns towards the doorway before Sole even walks through it. Sole walks like a man his size; big, heavy steps, that make the stairwell creek and echo up the spine of the building. He's loud in approach, though his appearance isn't entirely intimidating; he walks into the room slowly, and a neutral face that skewed more towards confused then any sort of nasty snarl or snaggletooth disposition that spelt trouble for mercenaries. When his eyes fall on Hancock, his eyebrows rise silently, almost as if surprised to see the mayor in his own office.

"Ah," Hancock puts his arm over the side of his couch to help him twist as he leans back into the red fabric, posture relaxed. "It's you! Vault guy."

"Sole." He knows his name. But Sole supplies it anyway. What a helpful guy.

Hancock smiles. "Yeah?"

Sole stops a few feet into the office, but doesn't approach Hancock fully. Vault dwellers were strange by nature; they didn't know all of the ways to act, sometimes did things that didn't make too much sense once they were above ground. Hancock has to remind himself, also, that it could be him. Vault dwellers didn't grow up surrounded by ghouls. There were people who had grown above ground, and still didn't stand too closely to him, either.

He looks more off-put than the day he had first walked into Goodneighbor, uneasily smiling his way. That day had to have been an anomaly. He walked into town, easy as can be, and went toe-to-toe with Finn without any hesitation. Not a lot of other people would be willing to swing someone's head off while surrounded by a bunch of armed strangers.

He hadn't died, at least. Most other Vault Dwellers weren't that competent. He had helped the Vault-Tec Rep up from a gutter trembling like a leaf years ago, but he was a representative, not an actual dweller.

It made him interesting. After Hancock had spoken with him at the bar, he had put out feelers with his contacts as to who this guy was. He hadn't found much. He had been seen ducking in and out of buildings around Goodneighbor, but he had been all around Diamond City, too, even stopping in at Valentine's agency. He scavenged, and did odd jobs, and even did the occasional mercenary work, but nothing long term like a caravan guard. Only ones that got him in and out, with solid payments. Vault 111, one of his merchant connections had told him, had only just opened. It was right next to a new settlement called Sanctuary, who were friendly people but had no clue about anything the Vault above them contained.

And now here he was, back again. He hadn't been expecting that, not without any active jobs out on the market. He looks like he's going to ask him something just as Fahrenheit enters behind Sole. She drops her minigun in its usual spot on the floor in the corner, and the floor shakes underneath its weight as she dusts her hands off. Sole looks confused, looking between her and Hancock. So, he hadn't come alone.

"Uh," Sole manages, still looking at her, as Fahren shrugs off her overcoat, draping it over the back of the couch. She barely glances his way, looking towards Hancock.

Hancock crosses his arms over his chest. Fahrenheit has very few emotions her face cycles through, fewer still in front of others she didn't know well. Hancock was getting contradicting vibes from her tight-lipped frown: somewhere between things went much stranger than expected and no, Hancock, I hadn't brought him here for you to shamelessly flirt and waste the rest of the work day away. She was a wise woman of few words and incredible judgement. (Though, Hancock knows, Fahren would argue that she hadn't said any of those things, and Hancock was very well preemptively judging himself but using her voice as his disapproving psyche.) "Well? The warehouse?" He nods towards Sole, "I'm guessing he came with you? I hadn't thought you'd need more help. Could have taken some more guards instead of outsourcing our work. No offense."

Sole holds his hands up against his chest, palms out. He looks ready to speak, but Fahrenheit beats him to the punch. Shame. "He was there, actually. With Bobbi."

That's surprising. But Sole doesn't let Hancock get a word in, his hands suddenly up as if preparing for an attack: "I didn't know she was gunning for you, Hancock-- Mayor?" He takes another step forward, full of a surprising amount of anxious energy for a man so big, "Should I call you Mayor?-- an' she had told me we were going for Diamond City. Not that it ain't much more legal trying to steal from Diamond City--"

"Diamond City is trash." Hancock interrupts.

"Right," Sole glances over at Fahren quickly, who isn't even looking at him; she's watching Hancock, her generally stoic face just showing the barest hints of amusement. "Well, like I said, she had lied and I didn't know we were going the wrong way until I saw Fahrenheit." He shrugs. "Didn't mean any harm. I got Bobbi to just walk away, and the other guy, Mel, he's a good guy."

Hancock's eyes are trying to stay on Sole's earnest expression, instead of the way Fahren is uncharacteristically smiling. He can tell Sole isn't lying; he doesn't seem the type to even have the heart to do so. But, from her look, this clearly isn't the first time tonight he's begged for forgiveness, or at least looked real sad with that strange, soft accent and dark eyes. "So, what? Bobbi's little patsy, here, asking my pardon?"

Sole's eyes go a little wide. "Yeah?" He hadn't been expecting that; the hesitation is obvious in the way his placating hands are curling a little, his voice faltering in confusion.

Hancock waves a hand. "Poof. You're pardoned."

"Uh," Sole replies.

Fahrenheit huffs out her amusement. Sole's ears are tinging red. Hancock tries to ignore both of these things, unsuccessfully. "Listen, if you decided to choose Fahren, and me, incidentally, over Bobbi No-Nose and whatever else she was promising from my storeroom, that's all I need as a show of loyalty. I ain't..." He laughs, but it feels hollow. Because he can feel it curling in his gut again. That weird feeling he gets when people stand before him, practically groveling and prostate. He's never wanted to be that kind of guy with power. Maybe his brother got off on that shit, on making people beg for their lives and his mercy. He doesn't think that highly of himself to be able to hand down judgement like some otherworldly being.

"I ain't," He begins again. He isn't McDonough. He isn't Vic. "The kind of person who needs you falling all over yourself. I appreciate it. Seriously. Don't get all weird on me. We're all just trying to scrape by out here, I get that."

Sole's forehead is creased softly, eyebrows furrowing. Fahren suddenly steps in. "Here, for your loyalty; a bag of caps, and I'll take you to where we outfit the neighborhood watch. You can take what you would like, within reason." She's pointedly giving Hancock a look now. He nods.

"Yeah, take what you want." He turns his attention to Fahrenheit, "Is Bobbi dead?"

"No," She frowns. "She decided to walk away from it."

"Good," He exhales. He watches as Fahrenheit guides Sole out of the room, engaging him in quiet conversation he can't quite hear with the lack of an outer ear structure. Hancock turns back around. The couch is molded to his back, entirely too comfortable for his tastes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes this chapter was big. I've got the rest of the story planned out so hopefully it will be updated a little faster from now on. Thanks again! Your comments mean so so much and I really appreciate them. <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for beta-ing Melonkollie!

From what is peeking through the sliver of open door, Sole looks sleep-rumpled and hunched over, as if bowed by the weight of his own exhaustion. Hancock doesn't know what time it is; he hadn't had the time to put on a watch this morning, though only now after knocking is he realizing that there is only stark darkness behind the murky windows at the far end of the hotel's hallways, without a hint of the rising sun's light.

"Yeah? Who is it?"

"It's Hancock." He smooths a hand over the front of his coat. He hopes he doesn't look sloppy. Which is a weird thought to have, at four in the morning. "Mayor Hancock?"

"Well." Sole falters, "Give me a second."

The door closes. Hancock shoves his hands into the pockets of his coat, and fingers the pack of cigarettes he always keeps nearby.

When the door opens again, Sole is standing before him mostly dressed. He's wearing threadbare sweatpants, slung low on his hips, and the flat brimmed hat he always wears is stuffed haphazardly on his head. He's not wearing a shirt; the only thing adorning his chest is a simple chain, which holds a jumble of dog tags and a ring on the end. From the slumped way he is standing, his stomach sticks out with a slight paunch;well-worked, but clearly not afraid of beer. He's thick and solidly built underneath his armor. In this light, too, Hancock can see he has angry, red scars on his shoulder, puckered from flame.

He's got a good amount of body hair, also, a noticeable amount for a ghoul who now had none and who previously had grown up as a wastelander in the kind of area where radiation wasn't kind toward hair in general. It was definitely the amount a Vault Dweller would have, with their offprint replications of pre-war health. It starts as a patch in the middle of his chest and drags downward, widening at parts, curling around his belly button before disappearing under--

Sole clears his throat. Hancock glances up. He had been staring.

He grins disarmingly as Sole steps out of the way to allow him entry. In the low light, he can't tell if Sole looks flushed or not, but he has the face of someone who is trying too hard to put on an air of calm. He easily reaches over Hancock's head and shuts the door behind him.

Hancock lights a cigarette. Sole's eyes trail on his fingers, and the way his hand cradles the flame; he waves the match out, taking in a slow inhale. When he passes the cigarette, Sole gives a gracious half-bob of the head and accepts it.

"So..." He pauses to inhale, taking his time, "Woke up today with triggermen in my bed."

Sole's thick eyebrows shoot up as he sits himself heavily on the edge of his bed. "Wild night, huh?"

Hancock's laugh is sudden and warm. "I wish." He shakes his head, "Not like that. The watch had them down before they got to even the second floor, but..." He shrugs, reaching out as Sole hands the cigarette back. Hancock's surprised he doesn't flinch when their fingers brush-- and then, he feels strange for thinking it in the first place. Sole's demonstrated plenty of times, even with a Vault upbringing, that he wasn't a bigot. He had worked with a ghoul. "They were sent by Bobbi."

Sole almost immediately looks ashamed, tail tucked between his legs, "I ain't got nothin' to do with it."

Hancock holds up a hand, "I'm not saying you did. Didn't even occur to me, really. What I'm saying is, I want you to help me take care of it."

He's fast becoming defensive, shoulders folding in on his body. "Because I'm the one who led her to you..."

"If it hadn't have been you, it would have been some other wasteland schmuck she led by the nose. Pun not intended." Hancock pauses to inhale. Sole is looking at the ground. "Or offense meant. I don't think you're a schmuck, but Bobbi sure as hell knows how to make people eat their hats."

He pauses, gesturing up. "Which, really, did you sleep in that?"

Sole reflexively looks upward. "No, I just--" He laughs, shakes his head in a way that's reminiscent of a dog trying to shake the water from his ears, and he reaches up to shove the hat off. He has a pretty standard buzz-cut, with a rather rough looking fade on the sides. Obviously home-cut, because the sides aren't quite even, and Hancock's sure if he ran his fingers over the dark stubble he'd feel scrapes and cuts underneath. His hairline is straddling the line of average to receding, his widow's peak stark. But Hancock hasn't had to have his own hair cut in a decade, and before that he wore it long and shaggy. Sole holds his hat in his hands like a mother wringing the laundry fresh from the wash. "You're the mayor, and all. Wanted to at least look semi-respectable."  
  
"It's early. It's, ah--" Hancock gestures to the pip-boy on Sole's wrists, then taps his own. "Probably earlier than I thought it was. I can't believe you vault dwellers sleep with those things, either."

Sole shrugs, and flashes a smile. "You get used to it."

Hancock huffs out a small laugh. He takes one last drag of the cigarette before passing it off. Sole takes it and leans back on the bed, one arm bracing him; the frame creaks under his weight.

Their fingers touch again. He talks while Sole smokes. "This isn't the first time she's fucked someone over with one of her jobs. Usually, it's not a big deal. She tricks some drifters, hides for a little, comes crawling back out of the woodwork. She's smart. I like her for her drive, you know, she plays a good game." When Sole tries to pass the cigarette back, Hancock gently refuses by holding up a hand. Sole keeps it.

Hancock's speaking the truth. Bobbi wasn't a new player to Goodneighbor. They had even collaborated together, before he had gotten too busy with politics to deal with smaller games. She was slippery, yes, but most people in Goodneighbor were. People were just trying to survive. Some were better at it than others. He smiles, "I just don't like that she's taken to me, and now she's--" He waves a hand, "Bitter or angry, or embarrassed, I guess. Sending hitmen after the mayor is a little much."

Sole nods slow. "Sending hitmen after the mayor is a little much." He repeats.

"I can pay you." Hancock says, before Sole can ask, "And it will just be me an' you. We don't need to draw attention to ourselves by bringing out the cavalry."

Sole looks surprised. "Fahrenheit?"

Hancock shakes his head. "She's going to hold down the fort."

Fahrenheit had more than politely declined his offer of coming with the two of them, looking as exhausted as someone could when woken up in the middle of the night by a bunch of wannabee gangsters spouting wise-guy cracks. Something about not wanting to watch Hancock hurl flirts every five minutes with Tall McStraightTeeth; which, granted, was not entirely true, and a little insulting, as he's sure he could flirt at a much faster rate than once every five minutes. She got the point across, though. He looks at Sole from underneath the brim of his tricorne. "What, you don't think I fight my own battles, after what I did to Finn?"

Sole's eyebrows shoot up. The cigarette is nearly just a filter in his hand, and he takes one last drag of it pinched between his large fingers. He stubs out the rest in an ashtray sitting bedside on the nightstand. The butt joins the dozens of others that have heavily accumulated in it over the years. "No, just... hadn't considered you would want to."

Hancock can tell he looks more put off than he should, if Sole's reaction is any clue. His eyes widen, head bowing slightly. "I mean, I ain't saying you can't, it's just..."

Hancock waves his hand. "No. No, no, Jesus. Come on. You're mistaking me for the mayor. Mayor is just my job. I'm a person, you know. I can do my own work." Hancock pauses. He crosses the gap between him and the bed, sitting next to Sole. Close, but not touching.

He sticks his hand out. Sole looks down at it in confusion. "Redo, alright? I'm Hancock. John Hancock. Just another guy. A ghoul for the every man. And you don't need to be afraid of me, or acting like I'm your superior." He tilts his hand, waiting. He hates this. He wants respect, yes, but only in the basic sense of respect that all people deserve. Not the yes-manning, the rush to cover opinions and remarks to appease him based on arbitrary power. "We're equals, alright?"

Sole's grin turns silly. He glances from Hancock's hand, to his face. "Alright. I get it."

"I mean, mostly equal. I'm probably just a little more handsome than you," Hancock teases as Sole takes his hand. It's warm and smooth, or at least, comparatively. Callouses and healed over blisters were barely bumps compared to his own skin. He tries not to linger.

Sole squeezes. "You always this charmin'?"

"Occasionally."

Hancock claps down on Sole's shoulder. "So, I'll leave you to get dressed, get your bearings together, grab a bite to eat. I'll meet you out at the gate in about an hour?"

\--

Sole had gotten ready as quick as possible. He had been out of his room in about fifteen minutes flat. Splash his face with a little water, take a rad-x, scarf down a meal, smoke another cigarette. It didn't take him long, when he lived out of a bag and lived minimally, at best.

Hancock was kind enough to let him leave some of his heavier, unneeded supplies back in the Old State House before they left. Fahrenheit was nowhere to be found. The city watch had cleaned out the bodies already, but the smell of death still lingered, along with a blood stain that was soaking through the floorboards as he stepped over on his way up the stairs. He didn't particularly trust Rexford's locks, or the people who worked there and had the keys to them. Even a building that had been besieged only hours before felt a little more safe.

It was going to be a short trip anyway, out and back in one day. The coordinates Hancock had typed into his Pip-boy weren't far away at all. Before the bombs destroyed the streets, he could have gone there and back before it was time for happy hour.

They leave just as the sun is starting to rise. In the city, with the buildings so high all around them, it's difficult to see where exactly the light is coming from, and there are patches still in darkness. Hancock says this is preferable; Super Mutants don't have the best night vision, and if they didn't make a lot of noise they could probably slide past any raider or gunner holdouts they stumble on their way to visit Bobbi.

He had grabbed a cup of coffee from the only hole-in-the-wall open at the time, just to keep himself alert. He hasn't had any since before the war. Caffeine came in the form of one cup per morning, but the bombs had rudely interrupted that ritual; and once he crawled out from the Vault, he was more attuned to the radiation sickness than any caffeine withdrawal headaches.

For the last several months, he hasn't felt a need for it, but being awoken unexpectedly is making him noticeably groggy. The first sip was coffee, and so was the second. But as he drank, he noticed the grinds that seemed to be floating, unpleasantly bitter and acrid on his tongue.

By the time he's halfway through, it's practically sludge in his cup. He silently pawns the leftover slurry onto Hancock. The ghoul knocks the rest back, regardless of heat or grinds, in one large gulp. Another thing Sole would just have to get used to, unless he wanted caffeine from Nuka, and that was too expensive, regardless of the one cap rebate. When Hancock smiles, his teeth are covered with flecks of black. Sole runs his tongue over his own teeth self-consciously as he watches Hancock toss the chipped mug the ramshackle diner had given him off into the distance.

He can hear its landing on impact, the sound of it breaking into a million pieces. Wincing, Sole glances over his shoulder. "Cocky."

"No Super Mutants this close in," Hancock explains. "Besides, I want the raiders to know I'm coming through."

Hancock graciously gives him a short run-down on the current climate of the area. Most Gunner groups don't really bother Goodneighbor at all. It was one of the only major places they could restock in the city, unless they found a traveling merchant, and the biggest three- Cricket, Lucas Miller and Carla- refused to deal with them most of the time. There were a few of the glorified raider types, but the watch and their fortifications kept them at bay. When it came to actual raiders, the more civilized ones would occasionally wander in to grab things they couldn't scavenge from their own kills, to use themselves or sell back to the others.

"We have a grudging understanding of each other." Hancock says. "You know, as long as they obey the law of Goodneighbor to live and let live, anyone is allowed to visit. I don't like Sinjin and his crew or any of the other psychos who waltz in, but as long as they don't start trouble, they're allowed."

Sole has had a few run-ins with raiders. The line between wastelander and raider is blurred for him; it seems to depend on the distance at which they will shoot at you if you approach, and how many intoxicating things you might find on their corpse. He's bumped into scavengers just as nasty and territorial.Some hopped up on a bad cocktail of chems just jump him like an animal, others on lean days think they can take him alone. But the majority are just human. They don't shoot unless he wanders too near, and it's easy not to with the corpses strung up outside buildings and tents, swinging maudlin outside in the breeze.

"They're more organized here than they are out of the city. Blessin' and a curse, because they've got leaders, that sort of stuff, so they think of more than their next fuck and high." Hancock continues. He nudges Sole in his side; it's easy, at his height. Sole tries to look covertly where Hancock is pointing. He's almost startled when he sees a woman peering through the dark of a dilapidated building, her face streaked with dirt, watching them closely. There's a stark swath of black covering the entire top half of her forehead. "But I know some of the other parts of the city have trouble because of that. Bunker Hill just pays 'em off, but I heard they're snatching caravaners." Hancock tilts the brim of his hat towards her. Her face doesn't change, but she waits until they've walked past the building before she disappears from the window. "Like I said, though, not our people. They know who Daisy and KLEO are, and not to give them much trouble if they ever go anywhere."

Sole hums a little, "Huh" in agreement. He wonders what other things he's missed, not being able to waltz around like Hancock does. Never in a million years would he have seen that raider up there; then again, he hopes she wouldn't have seen him if he had been alone. "So," Sole clears his throat as Hancock turns his face; he almost looks surprised that Sole is looking at him. "How long have you been mayor? You seem like you got it down pat."

Hancock grins. "It's not as hard as people make it seem. I just go with my gut, y'know. If you got a good one, it won't steer you wrong."

Sole puts on his own goofy grin, "My gut's telling me right now I should have grabbed more to eat."

The laugh that escapes Hancock is genuine; it's infectious, too. "Now you're making me regret I didn't pack a snack. A nice picnic lunch for two in the ruins of Boston." He holds his hands up, gestures all around them. Sole can almost picture it.

Their laughter trails off, warm; the silence after is pretty amicable. Though, if Sole can be honest, he's a little tired, too, even after the coffee. Hancock looks awake. Or maybe, distracted. His brow is subtly creased under the brim of his hat. Sole tugs his own down a little lower.

"You know, it's kind of messed up," Hancock says, glancing over at Sole. "I wasn't always like this."

Sole blinks. "A ghoul?"

Hancock laughs at the incredibly earnest expression on his face. "No, you goober." He shakes his head. "Like this... trying to put down people playing the game. People have to live how they can."

Sole's eyebrows rise. "Well, uh..." He shrugs, "She is trying to murder you."

Hancock makes a noise of half-hearted agreement in the back of his throat. "Point taken. But, still. I feel like the man, you know."

"Aren't you? You're the mayor." Sole knows he sounds confused, hooking his thumbs into the loops on his chest plate. "Ain't nothing wrong with authority, is there?"

"Yeah, there is." Hancock frowns, "Most people with power lose touch. They let it get to their head and forget all about the people that helped them get there."

Sole's feet scuff against the ground as he walks. "So, what, you're afraid you're losing touch? What about your gut?"

"Yeah, well. Sometimes you can get a stomach ache, or whatever. Look, I'm not in the business of extended metaphors. I mean," Hancock is gracefully fluent, but right now, he seems to be grasping for something he can't think of, or maybe doesn't want to expressly share. "What makes anyone better to lead than anyone else?"

"Huh." Sole trails off, looking ahead. They walk in silence, for a while, save the sound of their footsteps and far-off gunfire. "I've never been one to lead, I don't think. Ain't for me. I've tried an awful lot, God only knows." Sole's adam's apple bobs underneath his stubble as he talks, a buoy in a storm. Just the thought of all of those failed tests for power armor training clearance makes him anxious. The power armor troops were always the first ones out, to lead the men who were only in combat armor. He hadn't passed his exams to go up in rank or to operate the machinery. "Some people are better than others at leading.” He barely gives himself a pause to jumble out, “Preston asked me to be General."

"Who's Preston? General of what?"

Of course, why would Hancock know. "The Minutemen--"

"Oh shit." Hancock exhales sharply, interrupting out of sheer surprise. "I thought, well. Everyone heard about Quincy." He lowers his voice, but then changes the subject, almost abruptly, "They're coming back?"

Sole shifts. "Yeah. They're-- we're coming back." Preston's a good man. He's glad he ran into him not long after the Abernathy's.

Preston had told him, briefly, about Quincy. About what happened during. But mostly, what happened after. And that's really what mattered, he supposed, that they were able to rise up from all of that. Hell of a better man than himself, much more patient, hell of a lot less vices.

"Preston is the real General, I mean. He don't want that title either. He's like me, I guess. We can barely manage ourselves; how are we going to lead a people?" He pauses, "To be fair, Preston's actually... he's real good at putting up a front. I think he underestimates himself. I just..."

Hancock is really good at listening. He's watching Sole’s face real careful, his dark eyes soft but focused. Hancock says he doesn't always feel fit to lead, but Sole's not sure how he can believe that if he listens the way he does. Preston does the same thing. They're both good people. "Pull back?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess..." He trails off, feet scuffing against the ground. "Sorry. Feel like I'm spoutin' off at the mouth at you."

Hancock waves his worries away with a flippant flick of his wrist. "It's fine. You don't seem like you're hiding away much, brother. You work more than most do."

Sole shrugs. "Gotta work hard to see anything done, you know?"

"I agree. But, curious... what are you doing out here for the Minutemen?"

He's not. Sole doesn't want to talk about that. Not right now. "I'm working on something personal. I, uh--"

"Someone there?"

The voice is telltale mutant baritone, that scraping rumble more threat than curiosity. Hancock goes still, hissing out a curse under his breath. "When the hell did they move out here..." His head whips around, eyes wide. Sole does the same; he can't see any trace of the super mutants, not yet. Downtown with the buildings tall as they still were, sound gets thrown around every which way. If they were in a fortified encampment, there would be traces: the smell of rotting bodies, the mangled bits of skyscraper and highway used as fence-like spikes. But they would have noticed things like that; super mutants weren't subtle.

The voice sounded close. Close enough to make an instant sweat break out on Sole's brow beneath the brim of his hat. "Fuck." Hancock is practically spinning. He suddenly grabs Sole by the arm, dragging him aside as Sole pulls out his assault rifle from its makeshift holster. "C'mon, we need to hide."

"It ain't a camp," Sole's already jerking the safety off on his rifle, "I can take a small party. Both of us can."

"Like hell I want to." Hancock replies. For a small, thin guy, he can haul ass pretty quickly, even while dragging Sole. He motions with his head towards a building. "Come on, follow me."

When they open the door, it comes off in Hancock's hands. Sole has to scrabble to grab it before it clatters to the ground, nearly knocking Hancock over in the process; he trips, grabs onto Sole's front to steady himself, and for a brief and terrifying moment Sole is sure he's going to fall back and send the door over anyway.

Somehow, he keeps his footing, though his ankle throbs in protest. Hancock's eyes are sharp. He lets go of Sole, and twists around. His coat fans out as he spins. "Look-- put that back up, brace it at an angle," He's speaking as he's moving, then suddenly points to a corner where a dusty, sagging couch has probably resided for the last century or so. Sole is acting as Hancock is speaking. "Once you got that against the doorway, help me move that to brace the door closed. At least enough so this looks natural, like there's no reason to investigate."

He puts the door up hastily, turning around. Hancock's barely gotten the couch to move, though he looks like he's pushing. Sole situates himself on the opposite side; with a quick count to three, they lift it up. It's a miracle the bottom hasn't rotted out, and the entire thing doesn’t disintegrate in their hands. Sole's shouldering most of the weight when they heft it over, against the door. It keeps the door balanced, though it would be no deterrent if the super mutants wanted to wander inside. He can hear their voices, faintly, past the door.

Hancock grabs him by one of the straps of his armor, and Sole follows him away from the door. "Let's just stay here for a bit, okay?" Hancock is fumbling with a blister pack; he cracks out the first top row rapid fire of what looks like mentats into the palm of his hand, and swallows them all without a blink or grimace, barely pausing his conversation. He waves the packet towards Sole, and Sole declines with a shake of his head. "We still got time."

There's not much light in here, but enough that Sole swears he can see when the mentats kick in. He doesn't have pupils, not really, but there's definitely a blacker-black that he can't see any more when Hancock finally turns his head to look at him. Which, Sole now recognizes, is how he usually looks. Not the charcoal with the deep dark center, but all charcoal, pupil's pinpoints swimming in a vast sea.

They head upstairs, through a narrow, spiraling staircase, picking their way up between rotten out floorboards carefully. Neither want to fall through and make a ruckus. Sole's ears are peeled for the sound of any supermutants nearby, but this house was apparently made to last because he can't really hear much of anything. Even the usual ambient noise of gunner bullets and raiders screeching has disappeared. He's still careful, though. He's hyperaware of his weight, and how delicate most second-story and above floors were nowadays.

Upstairs is less picked-clean than downstairs, probably because the stairway would require more maneuvering than most would want to go through pre-war, let alone post. There's two couches, arranged together in a den setting, with a thick film of dust overtop. Hancock putters around, ambling over to the couches. When he gives the closest one a little kick, the dirt rises in a puff and then settles right back down.

"If we got enough time here, might get a nap in." Sole mutters, more to himself.

Hancock snorts. "I can take first watch." First watch, consisting of him gracefully vaulting over the back of one of the couches and flopping onto it. Dust rises around him in a puff. Sole sits down on the burgundy loveseat opposite much more gingerly, but it still feels grimy to the touch. He really doesn't want to lie back, but Hancock is already making himself comfortable.

"So... How much are you paying for this?" Sole breaks the ice gracefully.

Hancock's eyebrows shoot up. "Haven't even thought of that. All the guys from your vault so...?"

He doesn't finish his sentence. Sole knows he's getting red, but it's not the kind of bashful shame that's colored his face before. "Money ain't everything, but it is when you don't have enough to go around." Anger is seeping into the edges of his too-fast syllables. It's defensive. He doesn't have the time to be meek and humble.

Hancock's usual genial smile is stretching thin. "Alright. I'll speak with Fahrenheit when we get back. It will be enough." Hancock isn't understanding. Sole feels his chest tighten.

"Look, about that-- my Vault--" He exhales. He turns his head, and Hancock is still lying there, with his face turned towards the ceiling and his eyes open. He has his fingers threaded together resting on his chest.

"I hate lying, let me tell you, so forgive me for that already." Hancock goes still; when Sole pauses, he finally turns to look at him. "My vault-- it ain't like the others, from what I heard. Or, nothing like what they told us on the radio. I went in, my wife, myself, my son-- the three of us. We thought we were going through some sort of cleaning, de-lousing, rad-cleansing. Whatever the hell--" His words come out stilted, thick. He shakes his head, frustrated with his own shortcomings. "And we just stepped right in, and it froze us right up. Cryogenics. I ain't ever-- I don't think I signed up for that."

It's a poor excuse. He'll beat himself up for that later. But he doesn't want to flagellate in front of Hancock, either, not when he's only really just met him. "But I guess, you know. If... if Nora had been the one to answer the door, she probably would have read that paper they made me sign real good, realized it wasn't what it was all cracked up to be." Her name comes out forced. He doesn't like the feel of it in his mouth anymore.

He realizes he's gotten off track. And he's probably not explaining this very well. Hancock looks like his mind is racing a hundred miles per minute, pockmarked face creased with concentration. "Cryogenics..?" Hancock says it slow. Sole swallows.

"Yeah. Ain't believable, is it." Especially now that he has outed himself as a liar. A white lie, to protect himself, really. But still a lie. He curls his own thick fingers into a fist, biting on the edge of his thumb and tearing at the skin there. Still, it feels like a weight off his chest to come clean. "I'm pre-war. I can, uh. I can confirm anything you can remember from before--"

"I ain't a pre-war ghoul." Hancock interrupts with some mirth, but his smile is flimsy.

"Oh..." Sole almost sounds disappointed. And he's a little confused, too. He has to find someone to talk to ghouls about that isn't Hancock. But he stops, and reaches around his neck. Hancock watches as he tugs the rusted ball chain out from under the collar of his vault suit and the trappings of his chest plates, finally pulling it over his neck and hat. He tosses the entire necklace over to Hancock. He tries to keep his face controlled when Hancock catches it with surprise and looks at them sitting in his hands. Two sets of dog tags, two rings.

He looks like he's about to read them, but instead, Hancock closes his hand. Hancock's smile is easy. "Look. I believe you."

His smile fades fast, though, as his head lowers and his hat dips down from the movement. "I'm almost afraid to ask about where your wife and kid are, but I think I already know." When Hancock throws them back, Sole catches them as careful as can be, and gently drapes the chain around his neck again, tucks them in safe.

Sole exhales. "She's dead. Someone found our vault, defrosted us and shot her. My son..."

Hancock is holding his breath. He's almost a little embarrassed at his words. He knows his story isn't that bizarre for this strange new world; people die all the time, often grotesque and too soon. He knows he ought to keep his sadness a secret, a personal thing, but it's hard. He suddenly woke up with nothing. It's easier to lie back on the couch, so he doesn't have to hold any eye contact with Hancock. "I don't know. They took him, after they shot her." Sole says. It sounds rushed. And finite. Not an unknown with a path that holds an answer at the end. The kind of coffin-closing ending. He knows it, every time he's talked about it, the words that come out so fast they barely take up any space. To Abernathy, to Preston, to Valentine. He tries to make the words sound good, and hopeful. But he doesn't have much hope. Not that he's vocalized that thought in tangible, heavy words yet. But the weight of them hide behind his vague fumbling. "It's been over... six months, give or take. I talked with this detective in Diamond City--"

"Valentine?" Hancock interrupts with a half-laugh.

"Yeah! Valentine! Crazy robot, good guy." Sole shakes his head, as if he's got some sort of secret, some sort of joke. "He remembers seeing the cue-ball asshole in the city, actually. He lived for a time in the stands, but he's gone now." Sole lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Even if his son is dead, he wants to kill the son of a bitch who did it. He knows that much. "I know all the clues are in there, in the house. Just gotta search it. But I don't have the money to bribe the secretary and I ain't good at picking locks. Not that I want to."

"Which is why you've been doing all these jobs," Hancock finishes for him. He's fumbling in his pocket for something. "Pushy with the payments, and all. You're saving up. I get it."

"And everything costs so much. Food, water. Livin'. Making sure my gun has bullets and isn't falling apart, got to keep patching my armor." Sole says blearily. "This suit's good for radiation, yeah, but ain't much else it deflects."

"True," Hancock raises the inhaler halfway up, then pauses, looking fit to burst with something sly: "Barely keeps you in, really, so I'm surprised it keeps anything out."

The suddenness of it makes Sole laugh, and the color rises to his cheeks, ruddy and warm, even though his throat is still constricted with emotion. He tilts his head back, watching Hancock upside-down bring the mouthpiece of the inhaler to his lips. He exhales out of his nose, pushing all of the air out of his body until his chest goes concave, and then exhales a little more; only then, does he push down, breathing in slow and deep as the inhaler audibly reacts.

"What's...?" He knows Hancock can't answer, as his chest swells, but he asks anyway, watching with curiosity. He's pretty sure it's jet; always bundled in pre-war inhalers, re-purposed and the top painted red to signify the chem inside. Hancock sucks in as much as he can, trying to inflate his lungs to their utmost point. He pulls the inhaler away and a small, thin trail of some heavy smoke falls from it, curling and dissipating before it hits the floor.

His shoulders slump, body falling back against the wall, but he hasn't released his breath yet. Sole's transfixed, watching Hancock's eyes flutter close, his chest so incredibly still, ribs expanded under the red frock. When he exhales, through his nose, Sole exhales with him, feels his chest tighten and burn sympathetically.

As if he can feel the pull of Sole's stare, Hancock turns his head. He looks expectant. Sole licks his lips. "Jet, yeah?" Hancock says, finally, and Sole swears he can see the faintest, smallest tendrils of smoke pour from his mouth when it opens. His eyes are still closed. "Never had it?"

"Nah." Sole says, "They didn't have it before."

When Hancock shakes the canister, it still sounds partially full; it's a slow movement, like his hand is too heavy to properly move, something clunking hollow as he tilts his wrist side to side.

"You wanna?"

Hancock's eyes flutter open. They glow, animal-reflective, behind barely-there eyelashes.

Sole reaches an arm over his head, out towards Hancock. Upside down, he folds the inhaler into Sole's palm; he is overly careful, using his rough hands to push Sole's hand close, curl his fingers around it. His skin feels warm and rough against Sole's own callouses. "Li'l bit left," Hancock slurs, "'nough for first time."

Sole pulls the inhaler close, and tilts his head back to resting; he blinks back the ceiling lights, his hand coming up for shade when he raises the inhaler to his lips. He figures its like any other inhaler. He exhales, and exhales, until he can't, and then he exhales one more time. Pushing down with one finger, he inhales with the depressing of the lever as the last of the fumes eek out.

Almost immediately, he can tell he hadn't angled it correctly; there's a acrid taste on his tongue, where some of the dredges of it have turned to liquid particles. His lungs burn. It's been so long since he's breathed in anything more than a cigarette that, post-bombs, have grown bitter yet dull. He chooses to exhale over holding it in and potentially coughing it out; there's not enough water nearby to soothe his throat in that situation.

It's a high he's never quite experienced before, and it's so immediate that if it wasn't cloying it would have induced him with an instant anxiety. But his stomach never bottoms out; it just swims. His head is packed with cotton, swaddling his thoughts. It feels good. It feels- familiar, and not at all. He closes his eyes as his head throbs, but not unpleasantly. When he opens them, they're stilling lying on dusty couches where some raiders had probably been squatting before they moved on or were killed by super mutants. Where a family had lived, hundreds of years ago. He's still removed from that, as far as possible, no matter how many times he tries to squeeze his eyes closed and open them, like cleaning off a slate. Sole can picture that, too, his eyelids like windshield wipers, clearing off the glass of his eyes.

"Hey, how tough do you think Bobbi is gonna be? Is she going to be surrounded by, uh, henchmen?" Sole asks it before his mind can catch up. But it's better than talking anymore about Shaun or Nora; he's used enough knowing that thoughts like that could be dangerous, depending on where the jet takes him. All the tenseness from before has slithered out from his muscles and puddled somewhere on the floor.

Hancock shrugs. "Not sure, really." He can't tell if Hancock is still high.

"I'm gonna need buffout and psycho." His breath ends when the words do; he just runs out of air. He has to take a big, noticeable gulp of it at the period. When he exhales, he can feel his head throb a little, some of the cotton seep out of his fingertips. Already, the effects were wearing off.

Hancock's brow raises. He eases himself up to a sitting position on the couch. "You ever mixed those? Kicks like a radstag."

"Aw, ain't that bad." Chuckling low, Sole adds, "We had buffout and psycho, back then. Buffout is just a supplement for athletes and body builders. Psycho's got a tough name, but it's safe."

If Hancock had a nose, it would scrunch, but the skin around his nasal cavity and cheeks wrinkle instead. Psycho had other names, long Latin names, a name he couldn't remember that the doctors told him when they were swabbing the crook of his elbow down with iodine the first time he ever injected. And being two hundred years past, if he were to find a pre-war vial, the name would had been smudged clean off from oily fingers and time. Psycho stuck, though, after all this time.

"Everything was named something tough. Y'know," He chuckles again. His throat hurts. "It scared the spooks off, the ghosts."

That distracts Hancock enough. "Ghosts?" He rolls himself off the couch, standing to his feet and ambling over careful towards the windows. He's either moving slow or the jet is still in full force; either way, he peeks through the jagged glass, trying to catch a glimpse of any super mutants down below.

"Fuckin' hei gui," Sole mangles the word in his gentle mouth. He wouldn't have treated it with much respect even if he had bothered to read that little booklet of Chinese phrases and conversation starters found in his basic kit when he had been shipped out. Stuck like a sardine on the long flight over to Anchorage, he took to sleeping the long flight instead. Reading while flying or driving made him nauseous, and the paper was thin enough it made better rolling papers for cigarettes than any peace negotiations. "Commies with invisibility cloaks."

"Like a stealth boy?" Hancock says.

Sole shrugs, "Sorta. But it don't fuckin' wear out. At least, not until they were dead."

Hancock snorts, confusedly amused. "Yeah, okay. But how come you think psycho is safe?"

"Well..." Sole hesitates. Hancock's not doubting him, he doesn't think. He's leaning too casual against the wall to be doubting him, or trying to argue, arms loosely crossed over his chest. "I mean, maybe anything made post-war, that could be any gunk. Pre-war, we got rations of it on the field. Military made. Ain't nothin' wrong if it passed the Department of War's inspection."

Hancock snorts incredulously. "Well... you know, maybe you pre-war people are built different. I actually don't have any buffout on me right now, on account of trying to get on the road this morning, but I do have three milliliters of psycho. Pre-war, even." Hancock adds with automatic salesman charm, even though he's giving it away for free. "My good stuff."

\--

"Hey, Mr. Park?"

Nate blinks, rapidly. He zones back to attention, and the sight of Clark standing in front of him in his bright red uniform, broom held limp in hand. The teenage stock boy knows him by name now, and he's not sure if that's embarrassing or not. The Red Rocket is so close, he just walks over if they need anything immediate for the house, like a snack or a roll of toilet paper. Sometimes he walks over even when they don't need anything pressing. He doesn't mind the walks. They clear his head. "You've been standing here for a while. You need help with anything?"

Nate flashes him a lopsided smile. "Can you get me a can of dog food from the top shelf?"

Clark makes a face. "Real funny, Mr. Park." He barely comes up to Nate's shoulder. "Do you actually need any help?"

Nate scratches behind his ear, the bad one. The skin is all pinched and scarred, strangely smooth under his blunt nails. He's going to the VA hospital in December, to finally get a prosthetic installed. His face they had mostly corrected in the mid-way hospital back in Canada, but his ear had been deemed more cosmetic than the rest. A small, misshapen ear didn't startle children or lower the morale of civilians as bad as a whole face crisped over. "Nah. Just, you know... thinkin' 'bout which brand to get." He lies. His mouth feels dry. All of the cans of dog food look mostly the same. The dog got out again, but they keep putting food outside, just in case she returns. The neighbors complain that they're going to attract raccoons, but he doesn't pay them any mind. He chooses one of the cans in front of him at random, holding it up to prove that he had really been looking for food all of this time. "This is it. Take it up front for me?"

That gets the kid out of his hair, or at least, stops him from staring. He's lucky, Nate thinks. Not 18 yet, obviously, or he'd be out overseas. Now that they've won Anchorage, there's been talks that maybe they'll stop drafting, but Nate thinks that's bullshit. They get plenty of people enlisting because it's practically one of the few places still hiring, but it's still not enough. It's not ever enough.

He follows through the rows of packaged goods, grabbing a bag of salt and vinegar chips from the end cap. When he reaches the front, where Clark is drumming his fingers against the counter, he grabs a candy bar, too.

Clark takes them both.

"One's for my wife." Nate says. "She's pregnant."

"Yeah?" Clark says, his fingers moving with a familiarity over the register to key in the codes. "You too?"

Nate frowns. "Funny." Has he put on weight? Probably. The psycho kept him from ever getting hungry. But he's been off that now. "How come Super-Duper has those nice Mr. Handy cashiers and Red Rocket is still employing kids?"

He looks sour at Nate's bluntness. "I'm learning the trade. I can fix up some of the Mr. Handy's. I help work the cars, too, when they come in."

"When they come in," Nate repeats. He hasn't driven a car since his second deployment. It sits untouched in the driveway with a quarter tank of gas, just enough in case there was an emergency. Enough, too, if the price skyrockets any higher, he'll siphon it out and sell it secondhand. But he wants to save it, at least until after the baby comes. If Nora isn't at work when her water breaks, he wants to drive her to the hospital.

"$450.00." Clark says as he bags everything in a small paper tote. Inflation has just made his wallet a larger pain in his back and ass; Sole pulls his money clip from his pocket and thumbs out the bills. He pushes them across the counter.

  
The weather is still nice enough that the garage door is open, and he can see the car they have jacked up in the garage; it's the only one inside, and it's much too nice for this neighborhood. He wonders what kind of hot shot bought it and can have someone service it in this economy, but Sole figures a lot of the lawyers and government higher-ups and CEOs are still doing well.

There's a sudden gunshot. Nate feels his heart stop. He's standing stock-still for a second, deer in the headlights, and then he's diving down, behind the solid form of the gas pump. But if the Chinese have invaded, and there is gunfire starting, then he needs to get away from the station, away from the possibility of a bullet striking precious gas and going up in flames. Heart beating fast, he drops to his stomach, flattening out. His muscles are seizing.

"Sorry! Sorry! That was the engine--" The man is shouting above him. His words sound garbled, and faraway, the way noises sound underwater when they can't travel far. Like shouting in a pool, water closing in on his ears, chlorine sting in his eyes. "Are you alright? Hey, man?"

"Are you alright?"

"Sole?"

Sole sucks in a breath so fast and large he swears his lungs are going to collapse in on himself. His tunnel vision is so tight he can't really see beyond the bat in his hands; he drops it, where it lands hard, in something wet.

"Sole," Hancock's voice floats in. He turns towards him, twisting at the waist; the darkness is chased back, and his vision is suddenly sharp. He wants to be angry at Hancock for the interruption, though even he knows in the back of his mind he's being ridiculous; his voice is just rubbing him wrong, scratching annoyingly at the back of his neck. "She's dead."

Sole looks at Hancock with bewilderment, then turns back around. The surprise is enough to knock the irritation right out of him. "Oh. Shit." Bobbi's body lies on the ground. It's grislier than a usual kill; he aims for the head, mostly. It's not pretty, but it saves on ammo, and he's got the raw power in his arms to fatally dent someone's skull in unless they're wearing a helmet nine times out of ten. But her body is mangled, and broken. Blood's pooling dark around his boots, seeping out and into the old grain of the wood. His pulse is still thumping loud and fast in his ears.

There are no other bodies in the building, not that he can immediately see. She had been the only one. Bending down to pick up his back, his back seizes a little. The post-psycho ache is all-too familiar; when he straightens, he stretches the other way, blearily wiping his hands onto the front of his armor. He swings the end gently against the reinforced side of his boot, knocking some brain matter out of the open tangle of nails and onto the floor.

\--

Hancock gives one last speech before he leaves. He tries not to focus too much on Sole's face in the crowd, though it's not as hard as he expects it to since there is a sizable amount of people. It’s night, now, the worn twinkle lights glowing warmly between the buildings, cracked street lights coloring the town in an almost handsome way from his balcony. Hell of a lot nicer than the blaring brights of Diamond City.

There’s a lot of people gathered. More than has been at his last few town meetings, which Hancock will take as a sign that he's doing the right thing for now. It's a momentary step-down; Fahrenheit is more than capable of taking the reins, and Goodneighbor is largely self-running with the Neighborhood Watch keeping guard. Of the people, for the people, and all. They might protest a little; they might miss him. But they’ll do okay.

“But like any hot and heavy relationship, sometimes you gotta spend some time apart.” Hancock cracks a grin as he hears a groan from the far side of the crowd. Sounds like Daisy. “Let things cool off. Remind yourself of who you are.”

Sole stands with his back to the far wall. He’s smiling.

He’s really just flying by the seat of his pants with this speech, but if there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s speaking. And the truth comes naturally to him, when he can really feel it. “Now what’s the best town in the Commonwealth? Where can someone live free? With no judgement?”

_Goodneighbor! Of the people, for the people!_

He finishes strong. He doesn’t stay long past that; he’s learned to never dwell after speeches, and he’s not going to do so with an exit speech, that’s for sure. With his luck, he’ll start to miss the place before he’s even left the state house. Fahrenheit's waiting for him as he steps inside from the balcony, arms crossed over the rounded bulk of her chest armor.

"Are you sure about him?"

Hancock glances up as he picks his packed bag off the floor. "I spoke with Daisy already." Fahrenheit's expression doesn't change. "She says all he says is true. It all checks out, from what she can remember. 'sides, this ain't about him. This is about me. I've grown too comfortable--"

"I don't need the theatrics, Hancock. I know you." She interrupts with an arched eyebrow. Hancock's smile turns wry. "And I know you think all of the things you actually say is truth. Makes you a good politician."

Hancock presses a hand to his breast. "I'm wounded."

"See how the Minutemen might interact with Goodneighbor." Fahrenheit continues. They’ve worked together long enough he can easily pick up her train of thought. Sole isn’t half as good at hiding who he is and where he’s from as he thinks he is. "We don't need protection, but we could always use more trading partners."

The corners of Hancock's lips quirk.

"And I expect you to bring me back a souvenir."

"Oh, always." Hancock nearly laughs. He takes the stairs down; Watchmen wave him on, yelling out good lucks and come back soons as he exits the door.

There’s no real crowd, just the general movement and bustle of the town at night. But it’s not hard to miss Sole, standing a head above everyone else, his suit bright blue beneath the worn pieces of armor strapped to his body. Hancock catches his sight almost immediately; Sole ambles over with a grin, standing with a slight hunch as he scuffs the thin heel of his boot over the well-worn cobblestone. "Ready to head out?"

Hancock tilts his tricorne back. "Yeah. Let's get on the road, get through the city. Where we heading first?”


End file.
